


Scape Escape

by mariachiMushroom



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Abuse, Bill Junior, Bill is a manipulative jerk, Blood and Gore, Child Abuse, Episode: s02e04 Sock Opera, Gen, Grunkle stan - Freeform, Gun Violence, Non-Consensual Touching, Original Character(s), Spoilers, and a really bad parent, but you can try, now with illustrations by moi, now with riddles, riddles that probably aren't solvable, tastes like children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-03-18 00:49:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 23
Words: 42,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3549929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mariachiMushroom/pseuds/mariachiMushroom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Bill accidentally kills Dipper's body during the events of Sock Opera, Dipper makes a deal with Bill to keep himself from being dragged away to the afterlife. Now Dipper has to serve Bill while also trying to figure out Bill's evil plans and taking care of Bill Junior. Meanwhile, Grunkle Stan erases everyone's memories of Dipper and starts a cult in order to raise enough money to revive Dipper. And in her dreams, Mabel is visited by a mysterious boy ...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hit by a Bus

“No, don’t eat that!” the disembodied soul of Dipper Pines yelled. But it was too late. Dipper saw the shining black body of a cockroach disappear into his own mouth, as the maniacal demon Bill Cipher crunched down with satisfaction.

“I love flavors,” Bill said with glee.

Wendy, Soos, and the ersatz Dipper had arrived at the theater a couple minutes early, and were loitering around outside before Mabel’s puppet show started. Bill had been impatient with how long the preparations for the show were taking, restlessly picking at scabs and poking himself in the eye. He’d noticed a half-eaten hot-dog in the nearby trashcan, and scarfed it up. Something about the meaty, preservative-laden flavor had flipped a hedonistic switch inside of him, for he was now rooting through the trash and shoveling anything even vaguely edible in his mouth.

Dipper floated back to distance himself from how gross Bill was being with his body. The people around him were also shying away, hurrying to the opposite sidewalk to avoid the strange kid eating everything he could get his hands on. Only Wendy and Soos were still tolerating the weirdness.

“Woah there, Dipper,” Wendy said with concern. “I know Stan is a skinflint, but I didn’t think he was starving you guys. If you’re really that hungry, I can buy you something before the show.”

Bill stopped chewing the scenery to raise his strangely slotted pupils to Wendy’s face.

“Oooh, she makes me tingly in the pants. No wonder you like her so much, Pine Tree.”

“What was that?”

Dipper careened into Panic Mode. No way was that little yellow jerk ruining his relationship with Wendy! His mind raced, thinking of ways to minimize the damage.

“Hey Bill,” Dipper said in a sing-song tone, “you know what else is fun? Spinning in circles! You could see stars.” If he was lucky, Bill would throw up and decide that bodies were too much hassle.

“That’s a great idea!” Bill turned Dipper’s head 180 degrees, then spun around his body to follow. Now even Wendy was backing away from the guy doing a perfect imitation of The Exorcist.

“Dude, sick yoga trick,” said Soos. “Who’s your instructor?”

“Whee!” Bill staggered around dizzily, arms flopping back and forth. “I can’t walk straight!” He swayed back and forth, ramming into a streetlight. He looped an arm around the pole, but overcompensated and flopped on the street.

Straight into the path of a bus.

The panicked bus driver slammed on the brakes, far too late. Helpless, Dipper watched as his shirt was caught under the tires, pulling the rest of his body underneath. The full weight of the bus ran over his stomach. With a grind and a squelch, a wave of liquid sprayed from underneath the tires like the car had driven through a deep puddle. Only this time, the puddle was blood.

The bus finally skidded to a stop. Dipper floated low over his mangled body. The sight would have made him sick if he’d still been corporal. Half his face was now ground meat. Teeth were sprinkled on the ground. And worst of all, his torso had been torn from his legs, spilling viscera onto the asphalt.

Bill leaned back with dilated pupils and a deranged grin on his face, as if he’d just ridden the world’s best roller-coaster. Ignoring the severity of the massive organ trauma he’d just been subject to, he playfully squished Dipper’s exposed intestines. “You’ve got lots of guts, kid! Get it?”

“Oh my god, Dipper!” Wendy ran to Dipper’s side. “Please, just hold on until the medics come,” she said with a quiver in her voice. She bent down and gently held his hand in a comforting gesture. Bill took advantage of the moment to grab Wendy by the hair and give her a big smooch on the lips. Wendy pushed him away with disgust, a smear of red on her mouth.

“Wowza, is she a kisser! Ahahaha!” Bill’s insane cackling turned into a gargle as his lungs filled with blood. “Getting pretty dark now. Is this what it’s like to fall asleep?” Dipper’s body slumped backwards. His head fell to the ground, blood leaking out of the mouth.

In a flash, Bill was ejected out of Dipper’s body. He tried to reenter but could only manage to move it in jerky twitches. Soos leaned over Dipper’s convulsing body, but was slapped by a misbehaving hand. Finally, Bill gave up on repossessing the dead body.

“Wow, this body stinks. They just don’t make ‘em like they used to,” said Bill, ignoring the tapestry of human tragedy below him. “I didn’t even get to bathe in boiling oil.” Dipper fumed in impotent fury.

“Bill, you’ve gone too far this time! You killed me, I mean my body, I mean me!” Dipper gestured wildly at his own corpse.

“What are you gonna do, kid? Wave your noodle arms at me?”

“I-I-” Dipper looked down at the gathering crowd. Wendy frantically dialing her phone, lips still stained with red. Soos was attempting to tape Dipper’s torso to his legs. He need to tell his friends that he was still present, in a sense.

Before he could do so, a shadow fell over Dipper from behind. Dipper turned around to come face to face with a skeletal figure in a black robe carrying a scythe. The Grim Reaper.

**I HAVE COME FOR YA’ SOUL, MON**

“No, no, no, I’m too young to die! There are so many things I haven’t done yet. I never got to kiss anyone who wasn’t a fish!”

“Yes you did.”

“I never got to experience it!”

**YA SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT OF DAT BEFORE YA GOT RUN OVER. NOW HURRY UP. I’VE GOT A SOAP TO CATCH.**

Dipper looked around in desperation.

“Bill, you’ve got to help me!”

“Now why would I do that?” Bill examined his hand nonchalantly. “Your body had the gall to up and die while I was wearing it.”

The reaper impatiently looked at his pocketwatch.

**LOOKS LIKE I’M GOIN’ TO HAVE TO DO DIS DA HARD WAY.**

The reaper used his scythe to slash a dark portal open below Dipper. Inky tentacles of blackness writhed out of the portal, grabbing Dipper by the ankles and dragging him down. Dipper scrambled to grab something, anything. His hand caught Bill’s leg, and he clung to it with all his strength.

“Please, Bill, I’ll do anything!”

“Anything?” Bill’s eye narrowed and he clasped his hands together. “Hold on, Grim.” The tentacles stopped pulling.

**WHAT IS IT. I HAVE A TIGHT SCHEDULE.**

“No you don’t. Here, catch.” Bill threw a cell phone at the Reaper. It jammed in his eye socket, where the Reaper pried it out.

**IT’S THE NEW EPISODE WHERE CHRISTINE GETS JILTED AT THE ALTAR! AND THEN HER WATER BREAKS!**

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t click any ads.” Bill grabbed Dipper by the scruff of his jacket and pulled him free of the black tentacles. Dipper kicked one for good measure. It recoiled and retracted back into the portal.

“Now, what can you do for me?” Bill said, scrutinizing Dipper’s face.

“I’m smart! I know lots of things! Two plus two is math! The capital of Paris is France! I have a birthmark in the shape of the Big Dipper on my forehead!”

Bill lifted up Dipper’s bangs. His black hand was freezing against Dipper’s forehead.

“So you do. But that’s not enough for me. With you dead, think of all the tears I could harvest!”

“I’ll do all your dirty work. You must have some, I don’t know, dream floors to mop, dream trash to take out.” Dipper widened his eyes until they were watering circles and quivered his lips, begging Bill to accept his offer.

“Dirty work, huh. And an obedient slave? I like it!” Bill extended his hand, wreathed in ghostly blue fire. “Let’s shake on it.”

Dipper reluctantly reached out his hand, remembering the last deal he made. Below him, he saw Mabel burst out of the theater and run towards his mangled body. She shook his torso in melodramatic fashion and shrieked to the gods. Moments before their palms touched, Dipper jerked back his hand.

“Wait! You can’t make me hurt Mabel. Or Grunkle Stan, or Wendy, or-or any other human.”

“Is this really the time to be BARGAINING?” Bill said, voice deepening at the last word.

“Those are my terms. If I had to hurt Mabel, I’d rather go to Hell!”

“You have some real backbone to be standing up to me.” Bill said, gesturing to a piece of spinal column that had been ejected out of Dipper’s body. He hummed, and thought. Dipper glanced at the reaper, who was engrossed his show, and at Mabel, sobbing into his body’s bloody shirt.

After a few more agonizing moments, Bill came to a decision.

“I’ll make it work out. I still have lots of plans to fit you in.” Bill reached out his hand again. Dipper closed his eyes and grasped the demon’s black palm. What had he gotten himself into this time? Out of the frying pan, into the blast furnace.

The hand he touched was still as cold as before, but was now wreathed in flickering blue flame that sizzled like boiling oil. The pain traced down his arm and onto his back. Dipper didn’t have to have eyes on the back of his head to tell that a mark in the shape of a triangle with an eye was being seared into his back. Bill crinkled his eye in satisfaction, and waved to the Reaper.

“Hey, Grim, I’ll sponsor this kid’s existence.”

NO, CHRISTINE! DON’T FALL FOR THAT SCALAWAG RUDOLPH’S CHARMS!

“Keep the phone. But you’re paying for the data.” The Grim Reaper, still gazing intently into the screen, vanished. Dipper held his breath until it disappeared completely. Wait, did he even have lungs anymore?

Bill summoned his cane and twirled it around.

“You know, you could have just escaped the underworld yourself and become a ghost.”

“Wait, what?”

“Yeah, the barrier is as leaky as a 12-year-old’s summoning circle. Spirits escape all the time. With as much unfinished business as you have, you’d have broken out lickety split.”

“You mean I sold my soul to a crazy, evil demon for nothing.”

“Yup. Them’s the breaks.”

“Nooooooooo!”

“That’s the spirit! Now let’s go. We’ve got a lot of work before the Big Day.”

“Can’t I at least tell everyone I’m okay, er, sort of?”

“Visitations are a privilege, not a right. Now lets go!” Bill hooked his cane around Dipper’s neck and popped out of the earthly plane.


	2. Honorable Dimensionables

One moment, Dipper was in downtown Gravity Falls. The next, he was being dragged through strange dimensions by a yellow triangle of pure evil. Flashes of other universes appeared before his eyes as they hurtled through time and space. Colorful women fighting monsters made of crystal. A kid with an unruly tuft of hair and a head to rival Dipper’s own chased a green-skinned alien. Was that a herd of technicolor ponies?

When they finally stopped passing through dimensions, Dipper was sure he would have thrown up if he still had a body. The place where they ended up seemed blurry, half-formed. The world swam amorphously before his eyes. He blinked and rubbed his eyes. Once he opened them again, he saw they were standing in an exact replica of the Mystery Shack’s kitchen. Every detail was exactly as Dipper remembered, down to the random rib cage on the countertop.

“Nice place you’ve got here?” Dipper said.

“No, this is all your doing,” Bill said. “You’re just reshaping my little corner of the Dreamscape into a form your puny human mind can understand.”

“Uhrg, dreamscape, mindscape, what are all these crazy dimensions, anyway?”

“Let me break it down for you in a way your tiny human mind can comprehend.” Bill waved a hand and conjured an adorable blue-tinged cat. “Now, take a look at this cute little kitty. It has three dimensions, right? Length, width, and height.” Dipper nodded in agreement, not sure where this metaphor was going.

With one hand, Bill held the cat by the scruff of the neck. With his other hand, he started slicing the kitten’s body, carving it like a turkey. The cat yowled as its body was split into paper-thin sheets. Bill lined up the slices upright in the air, as if they were pages in a cat-shaped book. Disturbingly, each slice was still alive and moving.

“Now, we have a bunch of two-dimensional slices of the same cat,” Bill continued. “Each slice exists in its own separate plane, but the cat as a whole intersects all of them.” Bill rejoined the slices of cat, which Dipper was thankful for. “Now, humans are like the cat in that you intersect all kinds of different dimensions. The parts of a human, like the body, the mind, dreams, and so on, are actually just projections into each of the different dimensions. When you were in the Dreamscape before, you were really just paying attention to the part of you that’s always sticking out into the Dreamscape.”

“Beings of pure energy like myself are just natives of a different plane of existence. Like the Dreamscape for yours truly.” Bill doffed his hat. “We don’t normally intersect with the Matterscape, but we can pop in for a visit if we spend enough energy. Humans are the only creatures which naturally intersect all the dimensions, although you guys are remarkably blind to any dimension that isn’t the Matterscape.”

“When I possessed your body, I detached the part of you that intersected with the Matterscape,” said Bill, slicing off the cat’s tail. “Now that your body’s wrecked, the rest of you is now free to travel the ethereal dimensions.”

“Don’t act like you did me a favor,” Dipper said. “I liked my body.” Sure, it was short and scabby, and also kind of gross sometimes, but it was the only body he had.

“Ehh, you’ll get over it.” Bill banished the traumatized cat. “That thing was just weighing you down, what with having to sleep and eat and go to the bathroom. You’re much more flexible now,” said Bill, tying his arms into a knot.

“You’re currently taking the form that you body had, but you can really be anything you want,” Bill continued. “Want to be tall? Be tall!” He grasped Dipper’s hair and feet and stretched him out into a noodle. “Want to be cute? Be cute!” Bill scrunched Dipper down until he was nothing more than a ball of hair and eyes. “You don’t even have to look physical. The abstract symbol look is all the rage this millenium.” Bill rolled Dipper out flat like a piece of dough and shaped him into a Pine Tree. “Oui, oui, a la mode!”

Dipper wiggled out of Bill’s clutches long enough to pop back into his accustomed form.

“Aarg, stop messing with my head! Don’t you have some evil plot to get back to or something?”

“Well, I can’t let my new pet distract me from important work. While I’m out, be a good boy and,” Bill paused for a second while deciding what menial task to give Dipper, “organize my nightmares.”

Bill pushed Dipper towards a black door. It was decorated with a carving of Bill’s body wreathed in fire. Dipper didn’t remember that door being in the kitchen before.

“Here. I’ve been hoarding these for ages. They’re very collectable.” Dipper cracked the door open just a bit to look inside. A mass of claws reached out, trying to shred his face. He slammed the door shut, shaking in fear.

“Oh, and by the way, even if your body’s already dead, that doesn’t mean your mind can’t be shredded by a Dreamscape monster. Good luck Pine Tree. You’re going to need it,” drawled Bill, as he popped out of the room.

Great. Trapped in an alternate dimension with an impossible challenge. Dipper sat at the kitchen table with his head in his hands. How was he even supposed to keep the nightmares from killing him long enough to organize them? He could really use a drink. A Pitt Soda, or even a Matt’s Stone-Cold Limeade. He absentmindedly reached out his hand and grabbed a can.

And paused. Wait a minute, was this drink on the table before? Dipper stared at the soda he had conjured. What did Stan say about the Dreamscape?

You can do whatever you imagine in here.

Dipper grinned. He whipped up a helmet, a jar, and a giant butterfly net. Time to go nightmare hunting.

***

“Honey, I’m home! Are you dead yet?” said Bill Cipher when he popped back to the kitchen. Whatever he was expecting, it was probably not Dipper calmly washing the dishes. The kitchen glistened with cleanliness. A plate of freshly-baked cookies sat on the kitchen table.

“Oh hey, you’re back,” Dipper said. Bill’s eye narrowed.

“Don’t think you can buy me off with a couple of baked goods. Where are my nightmares?”

“Watch and be amazed.” Dipper triumphantly opened the nightmare door and led Bill through. The inside had been transformed into a brightly-library with rows and rows of jars on shelves. Each jar held a phantasmal blob of raw nightmare, neatly labeled.

“I came up with a modified version of the Dewey Decimal system to file everything. Nightmares about demons are in the 200’s, the ones where you go to school without wearing pants is in the 300’s, and the ones where your teeth fall out are in the 500’s.”

“I’m impressed, Pine Tree. You’ve already lasted a lot longer than the last servant I had.” Bill examined up a jar labeled “Losing all your wealth,” featuring a nightmare manifesting as a burning dollar bill.

“Yeah, I’m pretty awesome,” Dipper agreed. “Sooo, canIleavetheDreamscapeandvisitmysisternow,” Dipper said, all in one breath.

“Fine, sure,” Bill said absentmindedly, while putting a couple of jars into the interdimensional space of his body.

“Yes!” Dipper fistpumped. “Uhh, how do I ‘intersect with the Matterscape’ or whatever you called it?”

“Well, you’re pretty dimensionally-challenged. You need some help. And I know just the guy to ask.” Bill reached into his lower half and pulled out a brick, leaving a rectangular hole in the yellow triangle’s body. He drew a circular eye in the middle of the brick. The eye blinked, and black arms and legs sprouted out of the brick’s body. The brick looked up at his father and cooed in joy.

“It’s still missing something … aha!” Bill pulled off his bowtie and attached it below the brick’s eye. “Now you’re done. Welcome to life, Bill Junior!” Bill cradled his freshly-born son in his arms. “Who’s a good boy? You are! Wanna help your dad?” Bill Senior gushed. The brick hmm’ed in assent.

Bill picked up his son and shoved him up, away, and through the dimensions. The little brick’s limbs waved in panic as his body turned into an interdimensional window, with a view of the Mystery Shack tinged orange from the sunset. As the little brick squirmed helplessly, Bill reached into the edges of his son’s body and stretched it open into a portal wide enough for Dipper to travel into.

“That’s my boy!” Bill said, gesturing to the portal. “A real block off the old chip.”

“Did you seriously just turn your own baby into a door!” Dipper said.

“He’ll be fine.” Bill brushed off Dipper’s concern. “A little stretching never hurt.”

Bill kicked back in a chair and pulled out a newspaper with the headline “Bus Hits Deer In Downtown Falls: What Was It Doing There?”. He opened it to the back page and started scribbling on the puzzles with a pen.

“Now have fun you two,” said Bill, the picture of a doting father. “Remember, look both ways before you cross the street, girls are fickle beings with poor memory, buy bulk and save, bye!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bill Junior illustration by me.


	3. Lethe to the Party

Whenever Dipper got in trouble, say for breaking a vase or being in the general vicinity of one of Mabel’s crazy plans, he’d indulge in the vicious fantasy of dying just so everyone would know how important he was to their lives. Now that he was actually dead, he hoped that he wasn’t too late to attend his own funeral. Once he was resurrected, he’d have so much blackmail material.

Dipper jumped through the portal made from Bill Junior’s body and appeared at the Mystery Shack. Once Dipper traveled through the portal, Bill Junior’s body turned solid yellow again, and he shrank back to his former size. Bill Junior chattered angrily at Dipper.

“Sorry, lil’ Bill,” Dipper said. “I’ll make it up to you later. Right now, I’ve got to go talk to my sister.”

With haste, Dipper floated? sprinted? float-sprinted? to his attic bedroom, phasing through the wall. Bill Junior clung onto his leg and followed along.

“Mabel, I’m alive! Well, sort of. I made a deal with Bill and-,” Dipper said.

“Disco girl, coming through, that girl is you,” Mabel, Grenda, and Candy sang into a single karaoke microphone, completely ignoring Dipper’s presence. “Disco girl, clear the room with that inner-tube, woo woo!” The bedroom was littered with the detritus of girls gone wild. Candy wrappers and glitter formed a leaf-like layer on the ground. Dipper couldn’t believe it. How could Mabel be having a slumber party at a time like this? It was like she had forgotten he had ever existed.

“Candy, Grenda, I’m so glad you came to my slumber party,” Mabel said, as they took a juice break. “It gets really lonely in this old house with just Grunkle Stan. I wish I had a twin brother to hang with. But, I guess that’s just crazy talk.” Mabel fell backwards and made a glitter-angel on the floor.

Well, that answered his question. He took a closer look around their shared attic room. All his stuff was gone: the books, the poster with string, even the bed. How was this possible? Was this Bill Cipher’s doing?

“What are we going to do next?” asked Candy. Her lips were dyed blue from the “Boo-berry Punch” she had been drinking (with the motto: “Made from 100% Ghost Blood!”).

“I’ve got something special planned. Prepare to be scared,” Mabel said, lighting a flashlight dramatically under her face.

“Are we going to watch Trashion Disasters?” said Grenda.

“No. I found this,” Mabel brandished a Ouija board, “in a box at the back of the stockroom. Tonight, we communicate with spirits from beyond the grave!”

“Oooh,” said Candy and Grenda in unison.

“First, let’s set the mood.” Mabel turned off the lights and lit a ‘Unicorn Toots’ scented candle. The quality of lighting in the room decreased dramatically, in an atmospheric way. Dipper was glad he didn’t have a nose anymore. The supersaturated saccharine smell of the candle would linger for hours, stick to his clothing, and make Robbie laugh at him for wearing girly perfume.

Mabel put a black cloth on the ground and lay the Oujia board on top. The girls huddled around the dusty wooden board.

“Now, put your hands on the planchette, and repeat after me,” Mabel said. “Mortuus spiritus, loqui locus, hocus pocus, alakazam!”

With his ghostly eyes, Dipper saw that the wooden puck with a hole was now glowing faintly. Was that a real incantation? This could be his only chance to communicate with Mabel.

“Spirit, are you with us?” Mabel intoned. Dipper placed his hand on the planchette and pushed it to ‘Yes’.

“It worked!” Mabel squealed. “Okay, okay, let’s ask it questions. What is your name, oh spirit from another realm?” Dipper carefully moved the wooden puck from letter to letter as Mabel read off the board.

“D-I-P-E-R”

“Diaper? Is this a baby ghost?” wondered Candy. Dipper slapped himself on the forehead. Curse those double letters!

“Whooo are yooou? Where did you come frooom?” Mabel asked, elongating her vowels in a spoooky fashion.

“I-A-M-Y-O-U-R-B-R-O. My bro? But I don’t remember having a brother.” Mabel’s eyes widened in realization. “Did I eat you in the womb? Is that why you’ve come to wreak your ghostly revenge?”

“Let me try,” said Grenda. “What do you want from us, o spirit?”

With all the commotion, Bill Junior came over, eager to join the fun. He put his hands on the board and started pushing the planchette around. Dipper wrestled with the yellow brick over control of the wooden puck, selecting letters at random.

“I-C-U-P.”

“Eww, that’s gross. The ghost is a pervert!” Grenda flipped the board over. “This seance is over!”

Okay, maybe the seance hadn’t gone as planned, but he could still salvage the night. As soon as Mabel fell asleep, he could talk to her in her dreams. Then he could explain his situation and get help.

As soon as Mabel fell asleep. But Mabel had more energy than a battery-powered bunny, and was hyped up on soda too. Dipper could only watch the girls practice trash-talking, watch reality TV shows, and smear on pilfered makeup for so long. At least Bill Jr. was having a great time reading fashion magazines over the girls’ shoulders. He stared in amazement as Candy emerged from her makeover with blue eyelids, purple lips, and rhinestone blush.

“Now it’s your turn, Grenda,” Mabel declared. Dipper couldn’t take it anymore. He need a break from the perfumed madness. He exited the room and floated down the stairs. Maybe Grunkle Stan was watching the TV or something.

Fortunately, the TV was playing a rerun of “Dawn of the Night of the Day of the Living Dead People,” the classic zombie flick, although Grunkle Stan was missing from his usual seat. Dipper hovered in front of the TV and settled in for some fake blood shenanigans.

After about fifteen minutes of really bad acting, Grunkle Stan wandered into the room, wearing his boxers and carrying a lantern. Dipper would have been glad for some manly company, even if it was non-interactive, but Stan walked right past the TV and into the Gift Shop. What was he going to do there? Surely there wouldn’t be any customers at this time of the night?

Dipper turned the corner to see Grunkle Stan punch a secret code into the vending machine. The machine swung to the side, revealing a secret passage. Wait, had that been here this whole time? Dipper followed Stan downstairs, into an elevator, and to the negative third floor of the shack. The Mystery Shack had a secret basement? Why didn’t he know about any of this?

At the bottom floor, Stan casually walked past monitors, control panels, knobs and switches and gaskets covered in strange symbols, as if he’d done this every day of his life. Dipper stared in amazement at each new device. Were those surveillance cameras? Seismographs? Geiger counters? What the heck was Grunkle Stan doing with a secret lab?

Stan past one technological marvel after another until he came to a room sectioned off from the rest of the lab. The blast door slid open with at his approach, and he entered the sealed room. Inside, Grunkle Stan was dwarfed by a vast machine shaped like an inverted triangle, with a circular aperture in the middle.

Light bulbs covered the triangular machine, unlit and dusty. Some of the thick power cables feeding into the base of the portal had been detached, and connected to a chest freezer lying in front of the portal. The freezer was new, or at least hadn’t lay around long enough to collect a layer of grime like the other devices. The sides of the freezer had been marked with strange symbols, some of which depicted a triangle being smashed to pieces. With a small knife, Stan pricked his finger to draw blood, and started renewing the symbols. Dipper wondered what the chest could contain that was precious enough to warrant a blood sacrifice.

In the midst of the gentle hum of the machines, Stan’s gravelly voice was startling to hear.

“I’m sorry, Dipper. This is all my fault.” Wait, could Stan see him?

“Grunkle Stan, I’m here and I’m okay-”

“I couldn’t protect you.” Stan cut off Dipper’s words. He pried open the freezer door to reveal Dipper’s dead body, bathed in a sickly blue fluorescent light. Stan looked at the corpse with a sad familiarity.

“Of all the people in this world, I should have kept you safe. You and Mabel are the best things that have ever happened to me. I can’t believe I failed you so badly.” Stan brushed the corpse’s cold cheek with his hand.

“Stan,” Dipper murmured, placing his hand on Stan’s shoulder in an invisible gesture of comfort.

“But I can’t give up,” Stan continued to mumble. “I have the spell, it’s right here.” Stan was holding a worn journal labeled with the number one on the cover. The first journal? How did Stan even get that? Dipper was buzzing with questions he couldn’t ask.

“All I need is the body and 5000 carats of diamonds.” Stan said to himself. “5000 measly carats of diamonds! That’s it! That’s the price of a life. I can get you back, Dipper. I just need time.” Stan closed the freezer door and stood back up.

“And there are ways of buying time.” He walked over to a wall set with many buttons, each with a different symbol. He picked up an old-fashioned telephone receiver and pressed down on a picture of a cross laid over an eye.

“Hello? This is Stan Pines. I realize we’re not on the best of terms and all, but would you be up for a trip to Piedmont, California?”

Why was Stan talking about Dipper’s hometown? Nothing was making. While floating over to better eavesdrop on Stan’s conversation, Dipper accidentally brushed against a rune etched into the wall. The rune turned red. Sirens blared.

Startled, Stan dropped the receiver.

“Who’s there? Show yourself, Bill Cipher!” Stan picked up the journal and started chanting. Dipper was wracked with agony, like he was being slowly disintegrated from the feet up. He didn’t fancy sticking around to find out what the spell did.

Dipper flew out of the room as fast as he could will himself. He tried to phase through the wall as usual, but bounced off instead of going through. The walls must have had some kind of magic seal on them. Grunkle Stan’s pounding footsteps echoed behind him, and Dipper bashed himself harder and harder against the wall, like a fly trapped on the wrong side of a window. In desperation, Dipper tried flying into the floor instead of the wall, and managed to push through.

Dipper popped up outside the Mystery Shack and flew back to his attic room. Inside, the girls and Bill Junior were listening to Grenda tell a story about dating a guy who turned out to be a bear. Dipper picked up the yellow brick and shook him.

“Quick! Get me back to the Dreamscape!” The childish brick squirmed in protest and tried to wiggle out of Dipper’s grasp.

With a bang, Grunkle Stan busted open the door. Bill Junior screamed at the sight of the wrinkly old man in his boxers and undershirt, just like the other three girls. Bill Junior turned transparent and shoved Dipper through his body. Dipper flew through just in time, as Stan was attacked with pillows by the disgruntled slumber-partiers.

***

Dipper and Bill Junior reappeared in Bill Cipher’s personal Dreamscape bubble. Dipper never thought he’d be so happy to be back in the presence of the evil triangle.

Bill was floating over the kitchen table with his legs crossed and his eye was closed. The void in Bill’s body where Bill Jr. had come from was still present. Through his body, Dipper could see flashes of events from throughout human history: battlefields, coronations, a guy sitting on the toilet. The images on Bill’s body flashed faster and faster until they stopped with a ‘ding’ on the image of a blurry green figure.

“Three letter word for ‘Irritating invader’s origin’: Irk!”. Bill delightedly wrote down the crossword puzzle’s solution on the newspaper. It was at that time that he noticed the return of Dipper and Bill Junior.

“Back so soon? How was the night?” Bill asked his son. The little brick twittered and gestured widely in pantomime. “I guess I never gave you the ability to speak. Welp, time to absorb you back into my consciousness!” Bill Junior squealed in fear and tried to run away, weaving between the table legs. Bill’s hand followed the brick like a snake eating pixelated fruit. The hand closed around the little brick’s body and detached him from the table leg that he had been holding on to. As the little brick shook in fear, Bill placed the brick back in the hole in his body. Bill Junior eye faded away as he rejoined Bill’s body.

“Cronus was right. They do taste better when you make them yourself.” Bill Cipher burped and wiped the area below his bow-tie.

“You monster! How could you eat your own kid?”

“Relax, Pine Tree. It was just a fragment of my consciousness. You don’t feel bad for the dreams you kill when you wake up in the morning, do you?” Bill rolled his eye. “Now let’s see what you’ve been up to.” The events of the night fast-forwarded on Bill’s body as he digested Bill Junior’s memories. “Those shoes with that hat? Disgusting. Oh, here’s something interesting. It looks like Shooting Star’s forgotten all about you, kid. Or, I should say, had her memories erased.”

“How is that even possible?” Dipper said.

“Don’t underestimate the things your dear Grunkle Stan is capable of. He probably made a deal with the Society of the Blind Eye to make everyone forget about your little ‘accident’. That group is quite the useful little pawn. I don’t even have to be subtle about my plans; they clean up my messes for me.”

“Why would Stan do that?”

“The obvious answer is that he’s afraid. He’d rather erase you from existence than admit he failed to protect you. What would your parents think? It’s easier to sweep those problems under the rug, along with all his other history.”

“You’re wrong, Bill. Stan’s trying to bring me back. And once I’m alive again, our deal’s off.”

“Such loyalty! It’s a good look on you. But do you really think your dear ‘Grunkle Stan’ can save you? It wouldn’t be the first time he’s failed his family.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh, nothing. Now, mind yourself while the adult is scheming. I’ve got a certain Shooting Star to hitch my wagon to.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Questions? Comments? Concerns? Leave a comment!


	4. Dream Boy

It was the day of the big math test, and Mabel hadn’t studied at all. She was going to fail! She nervously chewed her hair as she stared at the paper. She didn’t recognize any of the equations at all. And why were there letters on the page? This was math, not English!

“Psst, could you help me out here?” Mabel turned and whispered to-

“Race you to the pool!” Mabel called. She sprinted towards the water, ignoring the “No Running” signs. At the concrete edge, she jumped up, tucked her legs in, and cannon-balled into the water. The water hit her like a slap in the face, in a good way. She sank down until her feet touched the bottom of the pool. Then she jumped off the bottom and shot to the surface in a cloud of bubbles. With her hair glistening in the sun, she tossed her head, sending a spray of water into the air. She looked around to see if she had beaten-

Mabel screamed as she rode in the golf cart, the ground shaking with the steps of the giant gnome made of smaller gnomes. The cart swerved back and forth to avoid the barrages of pointy-haired little men falling from the sky. Mabel punched a gnome in the face, then had to grab the golf cart’s poles to avoid being tossed out by a particularly jerky turn.

“Warn me when you do that!,” Mabel said to-

Mabel found herself cradled in a giant pile of sweaters, staring at a sky the color of marmalade. She sat up in the spongy pile of wool and raised her hands to her eyes to survey the landscape. Sweaters. Mountains of sweaters as far as the eye could see. Tangled heaps of fuscia, mauve, and aquamarine, with kittens and puppies that shared her face frolicking on the warm slopes. Sprouting from the sweater ground were trees that dangled yarn balls from their branches like fruit, and cellophane flowers in yellow and green towering over her head. Mabel was sure she’d never been to this place in her life, and yet it seemed so … familiar. Comforting. Like going to a coffee shop where everybody knows your name, and even the barista is glad you came.

Well, whatever this place was, she was going to explore the heck out of it. Mabel stood up to see if she could see sea, see. The sudden shift in weight caused her to lose her balance and she tumbled down the hill. Whee! It was like rolling in fresh laundry, but forever.

When she got to the bottom of the hill, Mabel grinned like a dork. Next to her was the cutest, fluffiest, sweater with the most adorable lamb on it. She just had to try it on.

“Well, who wants a lamby, lamby, lamby?” The childhood song echoed in her ears as soon as she got the sweater over her head.

“I do! I do!” Mabel sang along. Man, she loved the embarrassed look on the face of-

The sweater’s collar was too tight around her neck. Mabel couldn’t breathe. She yanked off the sweater and flung it away. The lamb applique came off in her hand. As she stared at the patch, she realized that a lot of the sweaters had holes in them. Not threadbare, like they had been worn to pieces, but sharp edges, as if someone had cut them with scissors. The yarn was unraveling, knitted cloth falling to pieces before her eyes.

Hot tears filled Mabel’s eyes as she clutched the destroyed sweater. Why was she being so emotional over this? She wiped her eyes on the fraying cloth. “I know I’m being silly, but it’s just so tragic! Who would do this? Now you can’t even unravel the yarn to make another sweater,” Mabel explained-

to whom?

“Don’t cry, dear sister of mine.” Mabel looked up from her tears to face a face that looked identical to her own, staring right at her. Mabel yelped, and fell backward. The person squirmed out of the sweater pile’s embrace, revealing a boy wearing a jacket and a baseball cap with a pine tree logo.

“Who are you?” Mabel asked.

“You don’t recognize me?” the mysterious boy said. “I’m your twin brother.”

“But how? I’m sure I would remember if I had a bro.”

“Would you, now? These memories look like they’re in pretty bad shape.” The boy picked up a sweater only to have the arm fall off. Mabel stared at the boy’s clothes, his face, his … gross unwashed clothes smell?

That scent brought back a memory of Mabel dragging a struggling body into the bathtub. As she stared at the stranger standing in front of her, she could see the boy’s face wincing as soap got into his eyes. She heard his voice whispering into her ear the answer to problem 2 on the math test. She saw him struggling to control a golf cart as little men rained from the sky. The missing piece of her memories.

“I found you!” Mabel launched herself at her brother, knocking them both over. “I missed you so much!” she said as she gave the boy the hug of her lifetime. He looked uncomfortable with this much physical contact and tried to squirm out of her grasp. But, they didn’t call her “Death Grip” Mabel for nothing. He just had to wait until she had her fill.

“Where have you been this whole time?” Mabel cried, with joy this time.

“There’s the rub,” the boy said, while patting her back. “Unfortunately, I’m dead.”

“Wait, what?”

“Yup, shuffled off the mortal coil, pushing up daisies, pining for the fjords, however you want to say it,” the boy said casually. “I died, and now I’m a ghost, forever cursed to wander the earth.”

“But that’s terrible! There has to be some way to bring you back.” There was no way Mabel was letting go of her brother now that she found him.

“Well, in my ghostly adventures, I did come across one way.”

“Tell me! Do I have to beat up an angel? I would totally beat up an angel.”

The boy grinned widely, and conjured up three battered journals in a burst of blue fire. Each journal had on its cover a metal plate with a six-fingered hand. “These three journals hold the key to unimaginable power. Power enough to rule the world, or bind others to your will, or even raise the dead.”

“So all I have to do is get those three journals, and I can bring you to life again?

“Bingo! Got it in one! Give me those journals, and I’ll be back in the human world before you know it.” The boy held out his hand, which was wreathed in blue fire for some reason. That was kind of weird, but Mabel shook it anyway, just to be polite. She made sure to give him her firmest handshake, which caused him to wince a little. Yup, still got it.

“So where can I find these journals anyway?” Mabel asked. “Are they buried in a secret tomb somewhere? Do I get to wear a fedora?”

“The books are closer than you think,” said the boy. “Just keep an eye out around the Mystery Shack. I’m sure they’ll turn up.” Mabel nodded.

“Now that that’s settled, who wants to play Punch Tag? Punch, you’re it!”

“Ahh, well, would you look at the time. I’m a busy ghost, got things to do, so-” Mabel slammed her fist into her brother’s shoulder.

“Punch brother, no punching back!” As she jabbed at the boy’s gut, her hand went through his belly.

“What?” Her entire body was flickering and turning transparent. The world was fading into white.

“It looks like you’re waking up.”

“But it’s too soon! I don’t even know your name!”

“That’s not important. Just remember to look for the journals. Remember.”

Mabel floated to the surface of consciousness. When she came to, Waddles was licking the makeup off her face. The details of the dream were fading into a foggy mush.

But one fact was etched in Mabel’s memory.

She had a brother.

She was not alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Questions? Complaints? Disturbing trivia? Leave a comment!


	5. Sinners In the Hands of an Angry Grunkle

After she woke from her wool-wrapped slumber, after she ate pancakes made with the Shack’s moth-infested flour, after she escorted Candy and Grenda out the door, Mabel thought about her crazy dream at the kitchen table. In the light of day, the dream did seem kind of silly. Twin brothers? Really? Was this some kind of B-rated mystery movie? And yet …

Grunkle Stan had made far too many pancakes for four people. Mabel was stuffed silly, and yet there was an entire stack still left on the table. There were two different brands of maple syrup on the table, but Grunkle Stan would only have purchased the cheapest brand, and that in bulk too. She looked to her left, where the table was pushed right up next to the wall. Shouldn’t the table be in the center of the room? Shouldn’t there be someone sitting next to her?

“Grunkle Stan, did I ever have a brother?” Stan choked on his coffee.

“What! Of course not. The idea’s absurd. You kids and your overactive imaginations.” Stan pushed away from the table. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to run a tour.”

“But it’s Sunday. Who’s going to come over today?” Mabel swirled her glass of milk.

“I’ve created a new exhibit: Postcards from Hell. I figured it’d be popular with the religious crowd. I also got the Mystery Shack filed as a tax-exempt ‘church’. If anyone asks, all the donations go towards charity.” Grunkle Stan put his suit on over his boxers and stained undershirt. To serve as a bible, he clutched a thick journal with a six-fingered hand on the cover. The number two was inscribed inside the hand.

“Gasp!” Mabel gasped. There Grunkle Stan was, casually holding the journal that her dream bro had told her about! It was all true!

Cleaning the kitchen forgotten, Mabel followed Stan to the museum entrance, where he was preaching to the choir. A handful of people were listening in rapture at Stan’s grandstanding. “Within these walls lies a terrible glimpse into the fate of those who do wrong in the world. Bless yourself with this coin-operated holy water dispenser before coming in.” Stan led the group into the museum. The lights were turned off, and the room was pitch black and spooky.

“Without the light of salvation, we would grope blindly, without seeing what thin and rotten ice keeps us from sinking into the murky depths of hell. But with the illumination of this lamp of knowledge (cash and credit only), the truth is revealed!” Stan switched on the lamp, revealing a floor painted with lurid images of eldritch abominations, as if reaching up out of some cosmic void. Wings, tentacles, claws, beaks, horns; every conceivable limb was represented in a repulsive fused mass. The foul angles in the drawing would definitely have driven Euclid to his therapist.

On closer inspection, the brushstrokes making up the pictures were kind of shaky and distorted, as if an unskilled artist had copied the images from some existing text. Yet the images themselves had an eerie and unnatural quality of motion that no amateurish reproduction could deface, like staring into a kelp forest, the slick black fronds waving gently in the water.

“Behold what awaits for those who fail to tithe ten percent of their income to the Church of Mystery!” Grunkle Stan boomed.

The tourists oh’ed and ah’ed in amazement. One of them, a thin man in biker shorts, tried to sound out the sigils written on the side of the mural. As the last mumble died from his mouth, he started shaking. The man fell to his knees.

“I hear them, they s̷p͢eak ̕to͜ ͠m̵e̵. Gë͐̿̅͑̂ͬ͜t͒̽͐ͪͯ͂ͪ ̆ͣ'̓̾͊̓̈́̔e̷ͣ̎ͫm͑ͭͥ͢. G̛̙̘̩̜̻e͗͊ͣ̍̓ṫ͕̿͗ ͖ͤ͞'̝e̘̻̔̀͞ͅͅm̬͚͔̮̆͊̀͆.̣̭̿ͣ̈́̑̇ͦ̚”

Black tar dripped from his mouth and splattered on the ground. The man started making noises that could loosely be described as a chant. If a chant contained polyphonic overtones and gurgles that could only have been produced by a viscous fluid forcing its way through a human’s vocal chords.

The drawings on the ground writhed. This time, it was no trick of the light. Mabel was knocked off her feet when a drawn tentacle shifted under her and peeled off the floor. A pincer grabbed Stan by the middle and he started in surprise. He attempted to wrench free, but was hoisted into the air by the massive limb. The lamp flew from his hands and crashed on the ground, breaking. The room plunged into darkness.

Panic and confusion filled the room. The heavy darkness was filled with screams and moist, squelching sounds. Mabel jumped to her feet and tried to scope out the situation. Good thing she had her emergency glowstick!

“Grunkle Stan, what’s going on?” In the dim, phosphorescent light, Mabel could make out Stan punching a tentacle. It looked like he was trying to read the journal, but with a wave of the grasping pincer, his glasses were knocked off his face.

“The journal, Mabel. Use the journal!” Stan threw the book at Mabel, and resumed his struggles with the giant claw. Mabel knelt down and flipped through the pages until she came to a picture that must have served as an original for the mural on the ground.

“The Unpronounceable Deities. Not to be confused with the Un-pronoun-sable Deity, who is actually a really cool guy. Gal. Whatever. These beings come from planes beyond the ken of mortals, where they sleep for aeons until the stars align. Under no circumstances should you attempt to read the text out loud, because they get really mad when humans mispronounce their names.”

“Ş̘̪͖̰̥̪̩̘ͭͫo͉̻͎ͮ͌͊́r̸͙̰͔̘͍͙̮̤ͯͬ̍̉̌͊̉r̷̯̩̝̀͗͊̊ͬ̍ͫͤ̆y̪̯̬͉̥̞͇̋̈́̋ͬ̏̊͊̋́͟͟” said the biker man.

“If you are around when the Deities are woken up, be warned that they will be really cranky. Well, no duh!” Mabel interjected. “They can be pacified, however, by anything that makes them sleepy again.”

“Sleepy … what makes me sleepy? Fuzzy sweaters? Chamomile tea? Warm milk? Of course!” Mabel ran to the kitchen, and grabbed her glass of lukewarm milk left-over from breakfast. She hurried back to the museum and presented the glass to the writhing hellbeast.

“Time out!” Mabel yelled. The beast stopped chewing on Grunkle Stan’s foot with one of its mouths. “I’m really, really sorry we woke you up,” Mabel said in her most apologetic voice. “How about a nice glass of warm milk to get you back to sleep?”

The pincer dropped Stan and delicately picked up the glass of milk. It dropped the entire glass into its beaked mouth and crunched. Then, with a sigh, it collapsed in on itself. The limbs fell limply to the ground. The entire beast became nothing more than a ghoulishly-repainted floor again. Stan sighed in relief.

Around them, the hapless tourists were getting up. “My eyes have gazed upon the face of madness,” said the biker man. “But you saved us, little girl,” he said to Mabel.

“Aww shucks, nothing but an old wives remedy,” Mabel deflected. “It was nothing, really.”

“Oh, okay.” The group turned to leave and forget all about their horrifying glimpse into the dimensions beyond human comprehension.

“Wait!” called Mabel. “I didn’t mean it! Tell me more nice things about how brave I am.” The group picked up Mabel like she was a rock star and lifted her in the air.

“Three cheers for Mabel. Hip, hip, hooray!” Now this was the kind of side-show attraction she could get behind!

“Yeah, yeah, suck it up,” Grunkle Stan groused. “Now, for saving all your lives, doesn’t she deserve a tip?”

“Money is the root of all evil, you know,” said Mabel, “Like this!” She pulled out a carrot that had wrinkles that made it look like an ugly old man. Grunkle Stan got a lot of deformed produce because it was cheaper.

“Yes, donate all your worldly goods to the Church of Mystery, otherwise you’ll attract the notice of foul spirits or whatever,” Grunkle Stan said. The biker man could not give up his wallet fast enough. He stripped off his hat, belt, and boots too, and left them in a pile. With only enough clothes left to maintain a G-rated Disney channel show, he ran out the building ranting about old gods and new prophets.

“Come back next week!” Grunkle Stan yelled at the retreating man. Mabel fancied she saw Stan’s eyes turn to dollar bills. Wait, that was just hair in her face. She blew it away with a pthbbb.

Once all the tourists finally left the Shack, Stan allowed himself a moment of gloating. “That was amazing! I don’t know why I didn’t think of this sooner. I’ve ripped off so many people, being a preacher is the next logical step.”

He picked up Mabel and gently noogied her on the head. “And I wouldn’t have been able to do it without you, kid.” Mabel beamed. Then she remembered what her dream brother had told her about the journals. “The key to unimaginable power,” he had said. What did Grunkle Stan want with this book?

“What is this journal, anyway?” asked Mabel. Stan paused with an indefinable expression, as if searching for the right words. Finally, he spoke.

“Look, kid, I didn’t want to get you mixed up in this. But by now, you should’ve noticed that Gravity Falls is pretty weird. This entire place is like some kind of supernatural vortex that attracts monsters and ghosts and who knows what else. I wanted to protect you from it, but I can’t be with you all the time. So, I guess I have no choice but to give this journal to you.” Grunkle Stan handed the thick journal to Mabel. The cloth-bound cover, the heft, the shining hand, it all seemed so familiar. As she gripped the book’s cover, she expected her fingernails to snag on the torn back binding. But the back was smooth. She flipped through the pages, and recognized the handwriting, but not a single line of text.

“Thirty years ago, a mysterious author came to Gravity Falls to study and document all the paranormal events that happen around here. That journal is full of the secrets of this town. But knowledge like this can be used as a shield or a sword. Promise me that you’ll only use it to protect yourself.”

“I promise.” Mabel held her left hand on the book and raised her right, as if swearing on a bible.

“And promise that you’ll keep this journal a secret. There are people in this world who would do anything to get their hands on that journal.”

“I promise,” said Mabel.

“Well, I’m glad we’ve got that settled,” Stan looked around the trashed room. His beloved jack-o-lope’s antlers had snapped clean off. The stuffing had been knocked out of the “World’s Oldest Teddybear.” And there were deep gouges in the floor from the other-dimensional beast’s claws.

“Yech, remind me to get Soos in here to clean up this mess,” said Stan. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Questions? Answers? Horrific nightmares? Leave a comment!


	6. The Library of Babble

In any other situation, Dipper would have been delighted to be in an infinite library containing all the secrets in the universe. But right now, he was sitting cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by a pile of discarded books and glaring at the instructions which Bill Cipher had left shortly before abandoning him in the “Infoscape.”

Being a being of riddles, of course Bill couldn’t leave him with a normal to-do list. Instead, the instructions were a jumble of characters, gibberish at first sight. For Dipper, it was simple enough to decrypt the text. Three letters back? Easy peasy. He could translate that in his sleep. But the message itself was more perplexing:

THE RAT-CATCHER BATS YARN TO AMUSE

THE LETTERED MAN READS THE DAILY NEWS

THE BURNING BOUGH IN THE HEARTH HAS LIT

ALL KNOWLEDGE AT YOUR FINGERTIPS

Unless Bill Cipher had taken to writing maudlin poetry about domestic scenes, this was definitely some riddle to be cracked. But what could it mean?

Dipper flopped back in a pile of useless books. When he had first arrived at the library, he had raced through the hexagonal rooms and mirrored hallways, eagerly pulling out tome after tome from the bookshelves. Their content was a huge disappointment. Most of the books were written in obscure languages that he’d never even seen before. And the texts that happened to be written in English were terribly boring, such as “Notes from the 12th Monthly Meeting of the Society of Septic Engineers.” He couldn't find any rhyme or reason for the books' arrangement, with botany books next to technical diagrams next to religious screeds. How was he supposed to find anything around here? He was going to have a strict word with the librarian, assuming there was any such person.

For people were conspicuously absent from this plane of existence. Libraries were supposed to be quiet, but this one took solitude to the next level. Dipper had seen no sign of human inhabitance, no scuff marks on the pristine tiled floors, no books sticking out of their shelves. Who, or whatever maintained the library must have done so by magic, for there were no labels on the shelves, no carts for discarded books to be placed.

All alone, in the middle of a vast desert of knowledge, Dipper wished Mabel was around. She would have made forts of the indecipherable books, and turned their useless pages into paper airplanes and tiny giraffes. Even though she was no good at cracking codes, he could at least have bounced ideas off of her.

Dipper sat down on the tile floor. He was beginning to suspect that the Infoscape’s library-like appearance was just an illusion, a way for his limited human mind to process being in a dimension of pure knowledge. That would explain why this “library” was lacking basic amenities, such as desks and chairs. He stared into the dim orb on the ceiling, which bathed the room in amniotic light.

Maybe a walk would get those lateral-thinking juices flowing. He stood up and wandered into the hallway. In front of him was a narrow spiral staircase connecting the floors of the infinite library. To his left and right stretched a never-ending series of identical boys wearing a baseball cap and a frustrated expression, courtesy of the mirrored walls.

Dipper wandered aimlessly, through hexagonal room after hexagonal room, up and down the spiral staircases. If Mabel had been here, she would definitely have slid on the banisters. And since there were an infinite number of stories up and down, with enough momentum you could just slide forever. Dipper pictured the two of them racing on adjacent stairs, seeing who could slide down the fastest. He grinned to himself, and an infinite series of boys grinned back. But not a single girl.

In this dimension, there was no cycle of light, no rush of patrons or change of seasons to indicate the passage of time. No hunger or thirst. Even his legs never tired, though Dipper was sure he had been walking for hours. Or was it days?

Dipper’s footsteps echoed in the reflective tiled floors. Perhaps he was hallucinating from lonliness, but Dipper swore he heard an extra step behind him. In the next hallway, he halted mid-stride, and was rewarded by a footstep that couldn’t possibly be an echo of his. In the corner of his vision, he saw something yellow dart into the hallway.

“Bill Junior?” Shyly, the yellow brick crept out from behind the staircase. “You’re alive? I thought you got eaten.” The brick shivered, and hugged itself at the memory. “Boy am I glad to see a familiar face around here.” Bill Junior ran to Dipper and lifted his arms up, as if begging for a ride. Dipper bent down to pick him up, but at the last moment, he pulled back.

“Wait a minute, why would Bill want to create you again? Unless … he has a plan for you.” The little brick sweated nervously and raised its hands in a placating gesture. “You’re a little spy, aren’t you? Like a surveillance camera for Bill. Why should I talk to you when you’re just going to report everything I do?” Dipper turned his back to the cowering brick. “I should just ignore you. Bill doesn’t need any more power over me.”

Something small and papery clutched at Dipper’s ankle.

“Get off!” Dipper shook his leg, but Bill Junior only clung harder, like a toddler on the first day of preschool. The boy grabbed at the clinging brick.

“Ow!” His thumb was sliced clean off by the rectangle's two-dimensional sharpness. The severed digit fell to the floor. Dipper gripped his wrist tightly to serve as a makeshift tourniquet, but no blood welled out of the wound. The injured stump was raw and shiny, but bloodless, like a raw chicken breast. Taking advantage of Dipper's distraction, Bill Junior clambered up his leg.

“That does it. No more mister nice guy.” Picking up his severed thumb and putting it in his pocket, Dipper rushed over to the next hexagonal room. He scanned the shelves for a volume thin and long enough to serve as a lever to pry off his unwanted passenger.

A dampness was spreading in his shoes. Dipper looked down to see Bill Junior crying, inky black tears that stained his socks. The brick glowed on and off, like a dying coal. He trembled, a ticklish feeling like walking in dewy grass.

“No, no, don’t cry.” Dipper stopped trying to detach the little brick. Bill Junior had knotted his arms to his ankle, like a rope. Maybe he was being too hard on the tiny brick, who was at the most one week old.

“What’s wrong?” Bill Junior sniffed, and pointed to the bow tie he was wearing. “Family problems, huh? Bill Cipher makes a bad boss, but I bet he’s an even worse dad.” Bill Junior looked up at Dipper, his eye shining with tears. Not even Dipper could resist that look.

“Okay, fine, I’ll hang with you. I guess we’ve got to take a stand against Bill. Enemy of my enemy?” Dipper raised his fist, and Bill Junior unknotted his arms to return the fistbump.

“Yes-ow, ow, ow,” Dipper winced, as he accidentally brushed his injured thumb stump. Bill Junior made a questioning noise. “You’re really sharp, okay.” Bill Junior reached into Dipper's pocket and pulled out the severed thumb. Using the black tears as glue, the tiny brick pressed Dipper's thumb back to its stump, tickling the cut with a brush of his eyelashes.When the brick let go, the thumb stayed put. Dipper wiggled his digit and found it to be good as new, albeit with a black ringed scar around the base.

“Thanks for that, little guy.” The little brick chirruped in happiness. Dipper carefully tickled the brick on its stomach. It was a bit like poking a warm, slightly damp index card. Bill Junior giggled and flopped on the ground like a fish.

“Well, I guess I owe you one. Although it was technically your fault this happened. What do you want me to do?” The little brick mimed holding a book and started humming, the pitch rising and lowering in imitation of speech.

“You want me to tell you a story?” Bill Junior nodded vigorously.

“In AD 2101, war was happening-” A loud raspberry blew.

“You don’t like that one? But it’s a classic,” Dipper said, disappointed that he wouldn’t be able to narrate the flashy space battles. “Well, what story do you want?”

The little brick bounced up on a shelf and pushed down a book. The book was bound with cracking leather, and had a circular seal with the picture of a rose on it.

“The Rose Prince?” Bill Junior “hmm"-ed in assent.

“Okay, let’s see.” Cracking open a yellowed page, Dipper began. “Once upon a time, many years ago, there was a little princess, and she was very sad, for her mother and father had died …”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The solution to the riddle will be revealed in two chapters. Put your thinking hats on!


	7. A Table for Truth

Mabel lay on a surface of damp softness. Uhrg. Did she wet the bed? She hadn’t done that in years. She opened her eyes, and blinked at the bright sunlight. Wait a minute, this wasn’t her bedroom. She pushed herself up, and felt hard cobblestones, overlaid with fuzzy moss. Instead of the oversized t-shirt she usually wore to bed, she had on a multi-tiered pink dress, poofy with lace and ruffles. Standing in front of her was the boy she had seen in her dreams the night before, this time dressed to the nines in black pants, yellow vest, and top hat.

“Welcome, dear sister. I’ve been waiting for you.” Her brother reached out a kidskin-gloved hand to help her up. The ankle-length high-heeled boots on her feet slipped on the cobbled ground, and she fell forward.

“Careful, there.” The boy caught her before she got dirt all over her fancy clothes.

“Thanks, bro. Where are we?”

“To be accurate, we’re in your dreams. To be precise, we’re in a little world I cooked up just for you. What do you think?” Now that her eyes had adjusted, Mabel saw she was in a small clearing surrounded by tall trimmed hedges. Shadowy paths branched out in all directions, just perfect for a game of hide-and-seek. Behind the boy towered an ornamental shrubbery carefully pruned to look like her head, with roses grafted to the bush as colorful accents.

“That's amazing! It looks just like me,” commented Mabel. She patted her flower double on one of its rosy cheeks. A thorn snagged on her skin.

“Ouch!” A drop of blood welled from the wound.

“Let me get that for you.” The boy kissed her hand, and the wound closed up. He licked his lips.

“Thanks.”

“No problem. It’s the least I could do. Now close your eyes. I’ve got a surprise for you.” Mabel squeezed her eyes shut, and the boy led her down a cool dark tunnel. They turned left, right, left again, until Mabel lost all sense of direction. As he led her around bushes and down tight corridors, the dress snagged on the branches. Her shoes were horribly impractical for the rushed pace and slippery moss, and eventually, she was clutching the boy's arm just to keep herself from tripping. Scents of flowers, of baking, and strangely enough, burning asphalt wafted through the maze.

Finally, the boy came to a halt.

“Open your eyes. We're here.” They had arrived at another clearing in the hedge maze, this one with a round table and two chairs. Vines of jasmine wound through the wrought iron table legs, perfuming the air with their strong scent. On a white lace tablecloth rested a delicate gold-and-blue porcelain tea set and a three-tiered tray piled with sweets.

“Wow, it’s so pretty!” It looked exactly like an illustration from a Victorian children's book. “But don’t you think I’m a little too old for tea parties?”

“Are you too old for this?” The boy picked up a cupcake and shoved it in her mouth. As soon as it hit her tongue, Mabel was overcome with giddy elation, like she had been asked out on a date by a member of Sev'ral Timez.

“Oh, wow, this is amazing!” Mabel said with her mouth full. “I’ve never had anything like it!”

“Eat all you want. I’m especially proud of my tarts.” Mabel bit into a heart-shaped pastry with a red filling. Her chest clenched in the same bittersweet way as when she’d learned that Mermando needed to go back to his family. She swallowed, and set the pastry down.

“So tell me, sister. What have you been up to lately?” The boy perched on the edge of his chair, hanging on to her every word.

“Today was completely nuts. Grunkle Stan was leading a tour …”

***

“...so I gave the monster a glass of milk, and it went back to sleep!” Mabel said, as she alternated between bites of a cupcake that tasted like acing a math test, and little cookies painted with butterflies that really fluttered. No matter how many sweets she ate, more would appear on the tray, like the best buffet ever. And she wasn't feeling that nauseous overstuffed bloatedness in her stomach, like that time she had eaten her entire birthday cake in one sitting. In fact, each bite of sugary pastry left her hungrier for more.

“That was some really clever thinking. I couldn’t have come up with a better plan myself,” said the boy. Mabel blushed under the praise, and stuffed an entire slice of pie in her mouth. Her brother was such a good listener! His eyes had never strayed from her a moment. “What happened next?”

“I’m not sure I’m supposed to tell you. Grunkle Stan made me promise to keep a secret.” And a Mabel Promise was as good as a gold star sticker!

“You can trust me. After all, I am your brother. And who’s going to spill the beans around here? This guy?” The boy picked up a cupcake that was decorated to look like a mouse, tearing off the cookie ears and throwing them away.

“All right,” Mabel relented. “After I put the monster to sleep, Grunkle Stan gave me a journal with the number two on it. He told me that Gravity Falls has secrets, and that the book would protect me from them.” As she spoke, a crumb caught in her throat. She coughed and pounded her chest, trying to clear her throat of the obstruction.

“Interesting. So if Stanford has the second journal, then he’s probably keeping the first and the third as well,” said the boy. Mabel’s coughing interrupted his musings. “Oh, have some more tea.” The boy tipped the teapot over her cup with a flourish, starting low and then raising it higher to create a long stream of steaming liquid. Before all the liquid could fall in the cup, Mabel grabbed it and gulped down the tea.

“What would a boring old man like Stan want with the journals anyway?” Mabel asked, once she stopped choking. “All he cares about is getting money from tourists by showing them fake supernatural stuff. I guess he could spice up his exhibits with real monsters, but after what happened today, I’d bet Waddles that he’s going to stay as far away from them as possible.”

“There’s a side to Stanford Pines that you’ve never seen, dear sister.” The boy pricked his fingers with a fork. “Did you ask him about your brother?”

“Yeah, but he just said I had an overactive imagination. I mean, secret twin brothers? That is pretty cray-cray.”

“But you know something is off, right? Search your feelings. You know it to be true. Stan’s been lying to you.”

“Grunkle Stan would never—okay, he lies all the time. Like when he told me there were no more sprinkles left, but I found a sack of them in the back of the cabinet.” They had been expired, and later, Mabel had vomited rainbows all over the carpet. “But he only did that to protect me. He would never actually hurt me.” The boy looked down and away, avoiding Mabel’s eyes.

“Stan would never hurt you because you’re his favorite. But me? He hated me.” The boy hugged himself. “I guess I was just too weak and nerdy for his taste. He always gave me the worst jobs: chopping firewood, unclogging the toilet, shaving his back hair.” With a wavering voice, he continued. “If I messed up, or made him m-mad, or just didn't work as f-fast as he wanted me to, he-he'd tell me to go out to the woods and cut a s-switch, like a tree branch. If it wasn't b-big enough, he'd ask me to cut another. And when he was finally satisfied,” the boy paused for a deep breath, “he'd 'beat the devil out of me'.” Mabel's cupcake fell out of her hand.

“I don’t believe it. Sure, Grunkle Stan acts all tough, but he’s really a big softy. He watches movies with people in old-timey clothes getting married, and cries about it.” The boy swallowed audibly.

“I guess what happened next is my fault. I never told you what was going on because wanted to protect you. Stanford likes you fine, but who knows what he would have done if you had confronted him with the truth? Plus, you were having such a great time in Gravity Falls. I didn’t want to ruin your summer.” Mabel reached for her brother's hand.

“But you should have just told me. We would have figured out something. Even if we had to go back home, I'd do that for you.” The boy smiled faintly.

“Yeah, I should have just told you. Because in the end,” the boy stabbed the fork into the table, “Stan decided to get rid of me. Permanently.” Mabel's heart stopped.

“That … can't be right. Stan would never kill someone. Especially not his own family.”

“Do you know what it's like to get hit by a car so hard, your organs burst out of your abdominal cavity? Do you know what it's like to shove a fist-full of your own intestines back into your body? Do you –“

“Stop!” The girl covered her ears with her palms, but the damage was done. Her mind was already coloring the space between the boy's lines, imagining the wrenching pain of disembowelment, the way the shirt would soak through with blood, dying in agony and weakness as the life's blood ebbed from your body. “Why can't I remember this?”

“There’s a secret society in Gravity Falls that erases people’s memories so they stay ignorant and docile. Stan made a deal with them to remove me from collective memory. If a boy dies in a forest and there’s nobody around to remember his name, did he ever even exist?”

Mabel wanted to move to Sweater Town, USA. She didn’t know what to think anymore. In her gut, she knew that Stan only had her best interests in mind, but how did that match up to what her brother was telling her? A vague echo in her mind of Stan ordering someone to do chores. Stan's mocking laughter. Antiseptic missing from the medicine cabinet …

Mabel felt a hand on her shoulder. “I understand that it’s a lot for you to take in,” the boy said, hot breath tickling her ear. “Whether or not you believe me, as soon as you get the other two journals, you’ll find out the truth.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh Bill, you cad. The best part is, if Stan had actually been abusive, Dipper probably would have acted in the way Bill describes. Sound like another great plot bunny, if anyone wants to take it.


	8. Decked by Cards

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains the answer to Bill's Riddle. Last chance to solve it!

“... But as the witch disappeared into the abyss, the girl looked up to see the swords aimed at her heart. The End.” Dipper slammed the book shut. “Wow, that was depressing.” Dipper looked over to see how Bill Junior liked the story. He seemed to be in shock, eye wide open and staring straight ahead.

“You okay?” Dipper asked. A piercing squeal filled the air. Dipper covered his ears as Bill Junior flailed his arms and bounced around the room excitedly, like Mabel at a Sev’ral Times concert.

“Aarg! Make it stop!” Unfortunately, beings of pure energy could scream indefinitely without having to pause for breath. Dipper huddled in a fetal position, trying to block out the piercing noise. Maybe if he shut a book on Bill Junior, the screaming would stop? After what seemed like an eternity, Bill Junior finally calmed down.

“Remind me to bring earplugs the next time I read a story to you.” Bill Junior dragged his foot on the ground, embarrassed at having been caught fangirling. And after all these shenanigans, Dipper was still no closer to finding the answer to Bill Cipher’s riddle. Was he really going to be trapped in this library forever?

“Okay, that was fun but I’ve still got to figure out this riddle.” Dipper waved the sheet of paper in front of the yellow brick. “You were a part of Bill once. You got any ideas?”

Bill Junior nodded and clapped his hands. The lights dimmed. A flickering noise, like an old-fashioned film projector, emanated from the brick's body. Video flashed on the brick’s body: an animated mouse smashing a sledgehammer on a cat’s head, black-and-white footage of a man and a woman kissing, a man in a fedora peering around a corner, gun in hand. Bill Junior rose into the air, as a wind whipped strips of black film around him. Aharmonic music, like an orchestra tuning before a concert, rose to a crescendo and then ...

The yellow brick fell face first to the ground, anticlimactically. The lights returned to normal and the wind died away. Dipper looked around, but nothing appeared to have changed.

“Did that even do anyth--” Dipper's words were cut off by a loud explosion. The ground rumbled as if an earthquake had struck, and books fell off of the shelves.

“What was that!” In the distance sounded the rat-tat-tat of bullets. Smoke billowed through the halls, obscuring his vision. Dipper cautiously peered around the door and could just barely make out two figures in the smoke.

“Let's get out of here, Junior.” But the little brick stood firm. He tugged on Dipper's pants leg and pointed towards the source of the noise.

“You want me to go in there? What's gotten in to you?” Seeing his begging wasn't having the desired effect, Bill Junior let go of Dipper's clothes and ran towards the gunfire.

“Wait, come back!” Dipper chased the yellow brick into the cloud of smoke, acutely aware of how vulnerable he was. He wasn't wearing boots or a kevlar vest, just a thin summer t-shirt and a vest. He didn't know if he could die in his current ghost-like state, but a bullet to the head couldn't be good for him. The smoke was so thick that he couldn't see the other side of the hallway, yet somehow Dipper's eyes weren't watering, nor did he have difficulty breathing.

The boy caught up to the Bill Junior, who was just standing in front of the doorway, without any sense of danger. Dipper pulled the brick away from entrance and behind the wall.

“What's gotten in to you?” Dipper stage-whispered. The little brick went into a fighting stance and jabbed at the air. “Are you nuts! I'm not bringing fists to a gun fight.”

Another spray of bullets, and a voice screamed.

“Hand over the book!” commanded a second voice. Wait, a book? Was it another one of the journals?

“No, you'll only destroy it,” the first voice panted.

“You should be less concered for that, and more for your own life.” A muffled thud, and cries of pain, like someone being viciously kicked while they were down. Bill Junior begged mutely with clasped hands for Dipper to save the day. Leaning against the wall, Dipper thought through the situation. No weapons, no armor, no way of summoning anything since this wasn't the Dreamscape. What could he possibly do? In lieu of a pen, Dipper gnawed on his thumb, pressing his teeth over the circle of black at the base.

Wait a minute, Bill Junior!

“Do you know what a frisbee is?” Dipper whispered to the brick. Bill Junior made a questioning noise. “Well, sorry in advance.” Making sure only to touch the brick's flat middle, Dipper turned the corner to see a masked gunwielder threatening a cowering robed figure. Before the gunman could react, he threw Bill Junior at him, like flicking a playing card. The two-dimensional brick spun through the air with a shriek and sliced through the man's chest, embedding inside his sternum. The gunman groped at his chest in surprise, and cut off his own hand. Then he toppled over, dead.

It worked! His crazy plan worked! Dipper whooped and jumped in the air. Hmm, maybe he should feel worse about having just straight-up murdered a dude. Ordinarily, Dipper would expect to be buzzing with adrenaline, stomach packed with flies, but instead, he was remarkably calm. Chalk it up to being dead.

With a splurt of blood, Bill Junior pulled himself out of the gunman's chest. The yellow brick didn't seem all that perturbed at its face-first encounter with a beating heart, scraping the blood off its face like a windshield wiper. Now that the assailant was dead, Dipper turned to the injured figure curled on the ground. He was holding a hand to his stomach, red trickling from between his fingers.

“First aid, first aid, let me put pressure on your wound--”

“There is no time,” the robed figure gasped. He coughed and spat blood on the ground. “I am the last Librarian. By the Order of the Crimson Hexagon, you must take this.” The figure pulled out a small, thick volume from its robes. “You must carry on the torch ...” the man made out, before slumping to the ground. Before Dipper’s eyes, he saw the man exhale his last breath, and all his flesh with it. The man's body, robe and all, crumbled to dust and blew away. The gunman's body had also vanished. The hexagon stood bare and empty, with no signs of struggle. Even the bloodstains had evaporated as if the two people had never existed at all.

“Creepy.”

At least the book was still here. The symbols on the cover squirmed until they turned into English. The title of the book was simply “Catalog.”

Dipper flipped through the pages. Axolotls, cryptozoology, matrixes, every subject you could wish for was present and indexed in the pages. Dipper paused randomly on a page.

“Abbot, Edwin A., Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions. 16U, 4L. So, that’s sixteen floors up, four left?” Dipper climbed the stairs, noting that the number decremented as he approached the indicated hexagon. When he came to the correct room, he scanned the shelves and found the slim volume.

“It works!” Dipper hugged the book and spun around, Bill Junior squealing on his back like he was on a carnival ride. Dipper looked at the cover of the magic book again, and was struck by a realization. He pulled out the sheet of paper Bill had given him.

“‘Rat-catcher’, that’s a cat. ‘Burning bough’, that’s a log. And the ‘lettered man’ reads articles. Cat-a-log. This book is what Bill Cipher wanted me to find all along!” Dipper facepalmed. Only Bill would write the most confusing instructions for the simplest of errands.

“I guess we should report back to Bill then,” Dipper said to Bill Junior. Bill Junior shook his eye. “C’mon, we can’t stay in this library forever. Well, I guess we technically could, but Bill Cipher would come check on us eventually.” Bill Junior was trembling again, and seemed on the verge of tears. “I know you don’t want to be eaten by your dad again, but running away isn’t going to help. It’s just like the story we read. Sometimes, you need to make a stand against your family.”

Bill Junior sniffed, and nodded. He turned into a portal to Bill Cipher’s corner of the Dreamscape, which now appeared to be an abyss filled with chalkboards. Dipper steeled his nerves and stepped through.

As Dipper transitioned from the library to the void, he fell for a couple of moments in the infinite void before he remembered he could fly. Bill was furiously calculating some kind of mathematical equation, having sprouted extra licorice arms to write on five chalkboards at once. He barely slowed down as Dipper approached.

“I got the catalog you wanted. Seriously, why didn’t you just tell me instead of giving me a dumb riddle?” Dipper proffered the book and the dream demon sprouted another arm to grab it.

“What would be the fun in telling you straight? Frankly, I'm surprised you found the Catalog at all. The Infoscape is infinite, after all.”

“So, you sent me on an errand, knowing that I could be wandering around literally forever?”

“Yup. That's what you're for! Wait a moment.” With catalog in hand, Bill popped out of the Dreamscape.

Dipper pulled on his hair. Bill was just the worst! The boy took a couple of deep breaths to prevent himself from going into a paroxysm of rage. Well, imaginary breaths, since he was a ghost and all. At least Bill's statement had put things in perspective. In fact, he was very lucky to have stumbled into that weird fight. Almost as if someone had arranged for the coincidence. Dipper side-eyed Bill Junior, who was outlining his hand on a chalkboard. Could he have--

Bill popped back with a stack of textbooks, presumably from the Infoscape. The yellow brick jumped and fumbled the chalk, which plummeted into the infinite abyss. Bill Junior flailed around in panic, until Dipper summoned a multicolored box of chalk and a levitating jet-table to hold it up. The brick squee'ed in delight and began sketching out a fairy-tale castle.

“Yup, that's the genuine article,” said Bill. “Now hand me my son and I’ll send you on your next mission.” Bill Junior scootched behind Dipper, using him as a human shield.

“You know Bill,” Dipper said, “I realized that having Bill Junior around is really helpful. If I didn't have anyone to talk to in that library, I would have gone nuts! Cuckoo in the coconut!” The boy traced a circle in the air around his head. “So, maybe instead of eating him, you should let him stick around. You do want me to keep doing a good job, right?” Dipper added nervously. He willed himself to stop sweating. Bill Cipher stopped scribbling on the chalk boards and focused his eye on Dipper.

“I don’t think you quite UNDERSTAND what Bill Junior is. Have you ever had a thought that was constantly at the back of your mind, DISTRACTING you from everything else? I know you have.” Bill conjured up a naked Wendy, luscious tresses covering her feminine curves. Dipper gulped nervously, and started sweating again. She slinked towards Dipper in a seductive gait that Dipper had never seen the real Wendy perform. But oh, how he had imagined it. She bent down, and a strand of hair fell away, revealing a choice bosom. Dipper knew how this fantasy ended. He pursed his lips and waited for his dream to come true.

Just before Wendy's soft petal lips came into contact with his own, the girl's face softened and dissolved. Dipper jerked back as her eyeballs fell out of the melting wax face into the black abyss. Wendy's entire body was falling apart and turning into a black sludgy mess. Like a monster from a horror film, a single arm reached out of the mess towards Dipper, until it, too, melted away.

“Eurg!” Dipper grimaced.

“Pretty distracting, right?” said Bill. “Now imagine if every time you had a fantasy, you had to keep it alive. Forever. Because apparently it’s ‘unethical’ to clear your thoughts when they’re not useful anymore.”

“This is different! Bill Junior is a real person.” Bill scoffed.

“Maybe to you, but for me, he's just a loose end that needs tying up.” All of Bill’s hands darted towards Bill Junior, like the little brick was a sink in a vector field. Right before they grabbed him, Bill’s hat rang.

“Lucky for you I’m being summoned. I’ll deal with you two later.” Bill absorbed his excess arms and positioned himself in his customary summoning position. A magic seal appeared around him, and the symbols lit up, faster and faster in turn, until Bill vanished from the Dreamscape.


	9. Dance, Magic Triangle, Dance

“This is Toby Determined at the site of the Mystery Shack, covering the hottest new attraction since the Tent of Telepathy. I haven't seen this many people in one place since the earPhone 13 was released last night!”

“Toby! What are you doing backstage?” said Mabel, gluing some extra feathers last minute to her High Priestess hat.

“I'm getting an exclusive interview with her Mabelness for the Gravity Falls Gossiper. Tell me, oh Defeater of Darkness, how do you keep yourself looking so young?”

“Soos! Security!”

“I'm on it, girl-dood.” At the sight of the large man, the babbling hack reporter ran away.

“I just wanted to get the inside scoop!” he cried, as Soos chased him into the woods.

“Blah blah blah sin, blah blah blah eternal damnation, blah blah blah tithing all your worldly goods to the church,” preached Grunkle Stan, or at least that's what Mabel heard. She peeked behind the curtains to see their biggest crowd yet: at least two hundred people milling in the dusty grass patch in front of the Mystery Shack. An actual news crew, led by Shandra Jimenez, was filming the event for the benefit of the bedridden and elderly.

Mabel recognized a lot of the people in the crowd. Tyler the biker was there, with bags under his eyes as if he had not slept since the incident with the dark gods. Wendy’s friends were sitting in the back. There was even a blond girl in an expensive silk head-scarf and designer sunglasses who was trying very hard to look inconspicuous.

Once Grunkle Stan started telling jokes about what would theoretically had happened had he gone to jail for drug-smuggling, Mabel knew her turn was almost up. But she was all out of ideas! The last time, she had showered some fairy dust in the air to make herself fly, but the same trick wouldn't work twice. Grunkle Stan seemed to be turning a blind eye to her blatant misuse of the Journal, or at least he was distracted by the vast quantities of money he was raising.

The stakes were high. She needed a real crowd-pleaser. Something cute, but with a hint of danger. Sophisticated, yet funny. She flipped through the Journal, hoping for some inspiration.

“Blood rain? Nah, it would compete with the concessions. Demon caterpillars? Cute, but not quite flashy enough. I need something-aha!” The journal fell to a page with an illustration of a triangle in a top hat. Easy summoning instructions were on the next page. This silly fellow looked like just the guy to put on a great show!

A deafening applause shook the stage, and Grunkle Stan walked backstage.

“I got the crowd warmed up for ya’. Now, I’m going to the store to get some more wheelbarrows for all this cash. Knock’em dead, kid. No, seriously, I think I got some insurance policies in that last collection.” Grunkle Stan drove away, narrowly missing some kids, and actually hitting some squirrels.

“I'm back!” said Soos, with a couple of leaves in his hair. “And I found this nice cell phone on the ground. Selfie time!” Soos snapped a couple of shots, as a wailing voice

“Cover for me, Soos.”

“My time has come.” Soos picked up his electronic keyboard and walked onto the stage. “Hi folks. I've got something real special for ya.” The large man poked at the keyboard, which barked at different pitches. “I call it Furry Elise.”

As the crowd boo'ed and rotting fruit piled on stage, Mabel drew a summoning circle on the ground and lit candles all around. The instructions had said to put a photo of your enemy in the middle of the circle, but Mabel didn’t really have any enemies, so she just drew a smiley face.

“Triangulum, entangulum,” Mabel chanted “Vene foris dominus mentium. Vene foris videntis omnium! Egassem sdrawkcab. Egassem sdrawkcab. Egassem sdrawkcab! Egassem sdrawkcab! Egassem sdrawkcab!” That sure was a mouthful. Maybe she should have spit out her gum first.

When the last word tumbled out of her mouth, all the color was sucked out of the world. The world slowed down, like a video played at half-speed. The flames from the candles rose into the air, forming a black triangular shape. The triangle sprouted arms, legs, and a single eye. The pupil moved towards Mabel.

“Nice to see you again, Shooting Star. What can I do for ya?” The triangular void turned yellow, and solidified into a pyramid with a top hat, cane, and a mysterious void in its brick body.

“You came! Just in time for the show.”

“Show?”

“Just wait here.” Mabel doffed her elaborate priestess hat and pulled on the robes she had decoupaged herself. The bells and whistles jingled as she walked. She stepped in front of the curtain, and relieved Soos, who had been using his keyboard as a barricade.

“Hello Gravity Falls!” Mabel announced to the audience. “Did you miss me? Admit it, you missed me.” Mabel basked in the applause. A girl could get addicted to this.

“Thank you, thank you. For today’s show, I’m going to mix it up a little. Instead of just telling you about all the crazy things that can happen when you don’t give all your money to us, I’m going to show you. Are you ready?”

“Yeah!” the crowd yelled.

“I can’t hear you!”

“YEAH!” screamed the crowd. Mabel motioned to Soos, who pulled the curtain rope. The red cloth parted, revealing a very confused triangle in a top hat.

“Introducing a genuine demon!” Mabel gestured towards the demon with jazz hands. A moment of silence ensued.

“That’s not a demon, that’s a dorito!” a voice yelled angrily.

“I’ve seen Taco Bell bathrooms that were scarier than that!”

“Now, now, good people, it's not polite to make fun of people because of their cute, nonthreatening appearance.” Mabel said. “Why don’t you introduce yourself, little guy?”

The triangle cleared its non-existent throat. “Hi, I’m Bill Cipher, nice to meet ya. My hobbies include crossword puzzles, paddleball, and drifting through the void of outer space while gazing at the insignificant speck of dirt that humans cling to.” He did a little jig on stage. “Ta-da!”

The crowd boo-ed.

“My grandma dances better than that!” a nondescript man yelled. Bill Cipher turned red with anger, and lit up in strangely familiar blue flames. “So you think you can dance, huh? Well, dance in this!” A laser shot out of Bill Cipher’s hands which turned the man’s feet into spiders. He screamed and tried to run away from his own feet.

“Anyone else got any complaints?” The crowd was silent for a few moments, and then cheered! Apparently they thought it was all part of the show. “Wasn’t that a great trick?” Mabel said weakly. Maybe she should have vetted her special guest before letting him on her show. “So, do you know any other tricks? That don’t involve preying on people’s primal fears?”

“Guess a number.” That … seemed pretty safe. Mabel thought of her go-to number for that guessing game.

“Ready!”

“Let me see… is it negative eight?”

“How did you know! Nobody ever guesses a negative number!” Could he read minds?

“Yes, I can, in fact, read your mind. All of your darkest secrets are like an open book to my preternatural vision. I know that you—” Bill pointed to a woman with wearing a cardigan covered in white hair, “—replace your cats’ antibiotics with the cheaper generic brand AGAINST THE DOCTORS ORDERS.”

“I’m sorry Fluffles, Snowflake, Princess Diana! I needed money for food!” The woman sobbed into her fur-covered lap.

“Hey! Play nice, Bill,” commanded Mabel. “That’s an order from your summoner.”

“Shooting Star, that’s not how it works,” said Bill, examining his fingernails. “We haven’t made a deal yet, so I’m free to do what I wish.”

“A deal?”

“Yeah. You say what you want, I say what I want, and we shake on it. A win-win situation for the both of us! Let’s do an example for the crowd.”

“Um, sure. I want you to put on a good show. Make everyone happy!” Mabel said, throwing glitter into the air.

“Mmm hmm. That’s pretty easy for someone as naturally talented as I am. In return, I just want a minute of shameless promotion at the end of the show! What do you say?” That did sound pretty reasonable.

“Okay mister, you’ve got yourself a deal!” A blue flame flickered across Bill’s hand, and Mabel shook it. The fire sent a trail of shivers up her arm.

“Now, lets get this show on the road!” Bill cracked his hands and wiggled his fingers. “Are you ready for all your dreams to come true?”

***

“Thank you, thank you,” Bill bowed, as the last of the fireworks trailed into the air. Mabel was still munching on a handful of sprinkles that had rained from the sky earlier. The artificially-colored clumps of sugar exploded into pops of mounting exhilaration, like going down the hills of a rollercoaster.

“Well, that’s it for today,” said Mabel. “And now, a word from our sponsors.”

“What I have shown you today is but a tiny fraction of my power,” said Bill. “Delight your friends! Smite your enemies! Infinite knowledge and power at your fingertips. All for a low, low price. If you need anything, and I do mean anything, don’t hesitate to call. Here’s my card.” Bill rose up in the air. A summoning circle traced in blue lines appeared around him. “You won’t be able to forget it! And remember: Trees move around when you’re not looking at them! All that exists after death is the void! Drink your ovaltine! Bye!”

The symbols on the circle flashed one after another, faster and faster until the light blurred together in a solid blue ring. A flash, like an atomic bomb going off. Then the demon was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mmm, not much to say this time. Comment if you care!


	10. For Whom The Bell Tolls

“Mabel, are you alright?” A hand roughly shook Mabel’s shoulder. Mabel opened her eyes to see Grunkle Stan’s stubbly face staring back at her with a concerned expression. Somehow, she was lying on her back, clutching the Journal. Her foot was jammed at an awkward angle, and pins and needles prickled up her leg.

“Grunkle Stan?” Her grunkle helped Mabel up to her feet. The audience was also dazedly getting up, as if they’d woken up from mass hypnosis. The confused mob looked to the stage for guidance. Grunkle Stan whisked the microphone out of Mabel's hands and worked the audience.

“Wasn’t that amazing! Come back tomorrow! Don’t forget to pay for parking!” said Grunkle Stan, as if the whole fainting spell was part of the show.

“Woo! Go Mystery Cult!” Soos started clapping and cheering, which spread infectiously until the entire crowd was roaring. Stan and Mabel bowed and bowed as the audience filed out.

“What a charming demon,” said Lazy Susan. “I’m going call him about my plumbing!”

“I don't understand how you could have messed this up so badly,” berated Shandra Jimenez. “All our footage is static!”

Finally, the curtains dropped, and so did Grunkle Stan’s stage act. He fell to his knees and pried open Mabel’s eyes, shoved up her sweater to look at her arms, and rifled through her hair, as if he was searching for some kind of mark on her body.

“What happened here?” Stan asked. “I came back from the store to see everyone lying around like they were dead. I thought some psycho had dropped sarin gas on everyone.”

“No, it was my fault,” Mabel said, looking at her feet. “I wanted a show that would really knock the socks off of everyone, so I summoned a demon.” Grunkle Stan grabbed Mabel by the shoulders in panic.

“Which one? Asmodeus? Belial? Furfur?”

“Bill Cipher.”

“He’s the worst one of them all! Why would you do that?”

“I thought he looked cute! And he put on a great show. You should have seen it! The sky was raining sprinkles, he made an army of knights fight a dragon, and there was even a puppet show. Plus, I guess it was all just a dream?” Instead of calming down, Grunkle Stan only became more furious.

“Oh, he might not seem like a big deal, but once he’s in your head, there’s no telling what kind of damage he’ll do. He can mess up your head so badly you won’t be able to tell what’s real and what’s fake.” Grunkle Stan snatched the Journal out of Mabel’s hands. “I see you can’t be trusted with this kind of power. You’re grounded! No more TV for the rest of the summer!”

“Grunkle Stan, no! I won’t try to summon any demons again, I promise.”

“You already broke your promise not to use the Journal for personal gain. You’re just as bad as your bro-mother. Your mother. Who was bad.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing. Now help clean up this mess!” Stan gestured to the mess left behind by hundreds of spectators. Pamphlets, soda cans, underwear, and worse. The Shack did not have enough port-a-potties for this size of crowd. In fact, they didn’t have any. All they had were trees.

From the ticket booth, Wendy ran up with an entire wheelbarrow full of cash. “And there’s more where that came from,” bragged Wendy. “I think we made almost one hundred thousand dollars!”

“One hundred thousand dollars! Lets see, add that to last weeks haul, and minus the cost of bribing the safety inspectors …” Grunkle Stan scribbled on a notebook in his pocket.

“Can I have a raise?” asked Wendy.

“No!”

“Why not? We’re making more money than ever.” Wendy pointed to a bite mark on her arm. “And I’ve been dealing with obnoxious babies and old people all day! This definitely calls for hazard pay.”

“You’re not getting a raise, and that’s final! Now go help Soos clean up the vomit. We’ve got another show tomorrow!”

“Uhrg.” Wendy stormed off. “Maybe I should have just gone to lumber camp. I can’t even remember why I thought working here was so fun anyway.”

Mabel threaded between the fold-up chairs, shoving discarded soda cans and plastic water bottles into a trashbag. She had to find some way of getting back that journal. Maybe she could earn his trust back? Or maybe she could just steal it and substitute a decoy made of cardboard. As she worked in the fading afternoon, she felt a prickling on the back of her neck, as if someone was watching her.

“Psst. Hey Mabel.” A valley-girl voice called from inside a bush.

“A talking bush!” Set it on fire, and that was tomorrow’s show.

“No, it’s me. Pacifica.” A blond head wearing a headscarf poked out of the bush. “I can’t believe I’m sneaking around like some kind of commoner. But I can’t let the paparazzi see me in this dump.”

“Then I’ll join you.” Mabel dived headfirst into the bush, and pulled Pacifica down into the underbrush.

“So, what did you think of the show?” Mabel asked.

“I was expecting it to be all cheesy music and lame costumes. But it was actually kind of cool. What kind of projector did you use to get that … Bob Sipper guy to show up?” Mabel looked around, all shifty-eye like, even though they were already hidden.

“Paz, can you keep a secret?” Mabel whispered in her ear.

“Of course. Rich people have many secrets.”

“The show wasn’t fake. None of it’s fake. Bill Cipher was a real demon that I summoned. And even though nothing bad happened, now I’m in big trouble with Grunkle Stan. He’s probably going to ground me for the rest of the summer!” The rich girl raised one eyebrow skeptically, like she didn't believe the fantastic secret that Mabel had just told her.

“That’s harsh. Because, well,” Pacifica tapped her fingertips together, “I told my parents that the Putt Hut wasn’t up to my standards, so they commissioned a whole new mini-golf course in the backyard. We imported an architect from Spain to design the buildings. It was finished today, and, well, I was hoping you would play with me in the grand opening.” Mabel grabbed Pacifica’s hands and held them in her own, gazing into her eyes.

“Pacifica, I would love to play mini-golf with you. To heck with being grounded. I’m sneaking out tonight!”

“Okay, let's swap numbers.” From the secret pocket she had sewn into the back of her sweater, Mabel pulled out her trusty old flip-phone.

“Ha, you're still using that old thing?” scoffed Pacifica. “I got the newest earPhone model that just came out yesterday. I even paid Toby to wait in line all night for me.” The rich girl pulled out a sleek pink rectangle, case glistening with bedazzled jewels that were probably real.

“Hey, I like this phone. It's been through a lot: camping trips, slumber parties, the inside of a bear's stomach.” As she typed in Pacifica's number, her fingernail scraped off a chip of paint. Hmm. Needs more glitter-glue.

Mabel finished typing in Pacifica's number. “Now for the most important part: choosing a ringtone!” Mabel scrolled through the available options.

Bark-bark! Nah. Pacifica was more of a cat person. Beep-beep! Nope, not unless Pacifica was secretly a robot. Was she secretly a robot? Mabel pinched Pacifica's cheek.

“Ow, what was that for?” Nope, not a robot. The girl scrolled through her list until she came to a bell. Ding-a-ling! This had potential.

“Paz, what do you think of this?”

“It's fine,” Pacifica said flatly.

“Okay!” Mabel selected the ringtone and hit save. Mabel sent a message from her phone to Pacificas. A generic tone pinged from the sleek rectangle. “You haven't set up your ring-tone yet?”

“I haven't had time to.”

“Then we've got to do it now!” Mabel looked through Pacifica's library. It had an interesting selection of classical piano and indie rock, but the most played song on the list was “Sakura Sparkler” by the 70's female punk rock band “Sentenced to Live.” Right afterwards, however, was “Minutez of Life,” the newest album by Sev'ral Timez.

“Oh my gosh, you have to change it to 'My Heart is (Not) Yours.' Deep Chris is so good in that one!” Pacifica had a pained expression on her face, like she had swallowed a fish bone.

“Sure, that's fine,” the rich girl gritted through her teeth.

“Um, okay.” Mabel set the ring tone. “So, see you at 10 tonight?”

“Whatever you say, Mabel.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh oh. Looks like Bill's influence is rubbing off on you, Mabel ...
> 
> The amazing Levi drew a fanart of this fic: http://i-knowyouknow.tumblr.com/post/118105440254/pine-tree-dad-and-me-based-on-scape-escape-by 
> 
> Give the artist some love!


	11. The Battle of the Baguette

When the last remnants of blue light faded from Bill’s summoning, Dipper and Bill Junior were left floating in the chalkboard-filled void of the Dreamscape.

“That was weird. But, I guess this is a good opportunity to figure out what Bill’s been working on.” Dipper said. The dream demon looked like he had spent a lot of effort hand-drawing some matrix equations. The chalkboard was covered in numbers arranged in neat rows and columns, surrounded by square brackets. Numbers had been plugged into the matrix multiplication formula, and carefully worked out by hand. By the angry gouges in the chalkboard, Dipper took it that Bill hadn’t found the solution he wanted, probably due to a basic arithmetic error. It looked like even immortal demons could still mistake a one for a seven.

“If Bill’s so smart, why didn’t he just use a calculator for this number crunching?” Dipper conjured his trusty brick calculator. “Now, just plug in a couple of numbers,” he muttered, “and done!”

The calculator’s cursor blinked as it calculated the solution.

“And done!” Dipper impatiently mashed the enter button but the cursor just winked mockingly at him.

“What’s taking so long? I could do it faster by hand.” Dipper scribbled on the chalkboard. As soon as he found the answer, the number appeared on the calculator.

“That’s weird.” Dipper tried entering another long equation. And again, the answer only appeared on the calculator when Dipper finished solving it by hand. Dipper pressed the pi button on his conjured calculator, which on the real device would continuously scroll the digits up to one thousand places. But Dipper had only memorized it up to one hundred, and lo and behold, only the first hundred digits appeared.

“Very interesting. Grunkle Stan said that in the Dreamscape, you can do whatever you can imagine. But, it looks like that’s both a blessing and a curse.”

Dipper examined the chalkboard again. Whatever Bill wanted, he wanted it badly enough to calm his antsy nature and do a lot of tedious calculation. Dipper was unfamiliar with the exact formula Bill was using, but he could make a guess. A 4x4 matrix multiplied by a 4x1 matrix. An illustration of a circle being distorted into an ellipse. Could this be some kind of projective transformation?

“It looks like he’s trying to push a two-dimensional shape into three-dimensions. Is that Bill's plan?”

Dipper felt a small tug on his shirt sleeve. Bill Junior pointed at his chalkboard mural, and puffed out his middle proudly. The small brick had drawn a scene in which a brave knight, wielding a sword and a shield with a pine tree insignia, fought an army of … hand turkeys? Behind the army was a castle guarded by an immense yellow dragon with jagged black teeth and one eye. The triangular tip of the dragon's tail waved casually at the night, while the head spat blue fire at the castle's tall tower. On the top of the tower stood a princess with golden curls, cowering from the flames. Dipper got the feeling that this picture was some kind of foreshadowing. Or symbolism. Fore-ymbolism?

“That's really cute. But Bill’s going to be so mad when he comes back and sees you've erased all his work.”

“I’m back!” said Bill. Bill Junior squeaked and hid behind Dipper. Bill hung up his hat and cane on a chalkboard. “Phew! Your sister sure knows how to work a crowd.”

“What have you been doing with Mabel?”

“Relax kid, I’ve just been hanging out in her dreams. Tonight, we're going dancing! She’s certainly a lot more fun than you are.”

“Hey!” exclaimed Dipper. Bill Junior giggled into Dipper’s ear.

“After all that, I could use a little snack. And I think I know what would hit the spot.” The dream demon waved his hands and the Dreamscape turned back into the Mystery Shack kitchen. Bill rummaged around in the cabinets and pulled out a loaf of Italian bread. He sliced the bread in half longways and set it down on the table. Then he opened the fridge and piled foods—seemingly at random—on top. Slices of ham, leftover tacos, entire cans of soda. As the pile of food grew and grew, Dipper wondered how Bill was going to fit all that into his two-dimensional body. He didn’t even have a mouth.

Bill finished slathering a dead possum with ketchup and floated back to survey his handiwork. “It’s still missing something … I know!” Faster than Dipper could react, Bill whipped his hand behind his back to snatch up Bill Junior. “A piece of cheese!” The hapless yellow rectangle was slapped on top of the mountainous sandwich. “Truly a sandwich worth of being consumed by me!”

“Was all this just an elaborate setup to get me to let my guard down?” Dipper accused.

“Yes. It’s funny how distractible you are—ooh, look a shiny.” Bill picked up a polished green billiard ball and stuck it into the sandwich. “Mmm, now that’s good eatin’.” The dream demon coiled its arms around the massive sandwich, and expanded the Bill Junior-sized hole in his body until it could fit the sandwich. A vacuum pull came from the hole, sucking in the sandwich--

Bill’s hat rang again. Bill dropped the sandwich and pressed the hat against the side of his body, where ears would be if he had any. “Uhrg, they always call at dinnertime. This should take just a moment. Wait here for me, baby,” Bill lovingly patted his sandwich and vanished from the Dreamscape.

As soon as Bill was gone, Dipper floated up to the top of the sandwich, where Bill Junior was struggling to extricate himself from a gluey mass of mashed potatoes.

“Hold on, I’ll get you out of there.” But when Dipper reached for the mass of food, a giant green centipede popped its head out of the sandwich and grabbed Bill Junior with its jaws. “Hey, give him back!” The monster screeched and burrowed back into the giant sandwich, pulling Bill Junior along with it.

“Don’t worry, Bill Junior. I’m coming to save you!” A medieval suit of armor, complete with articulated helmet, materialized around Dipper's body. With a mace and chain, he smashed through the sandwich. Meat and condiments flew everywhere. Dipper repeatedly slammed the spiked ball into massive sandwich until the centipede popped its head out again, with Bill Junior clutched in its back pincers.

A venomous green drool leaked from the centipede’s serrated jaws. It spat the liquid at Dipper, who was too weighed down from the armor to dodge. “Ow, ow, ow, it burns!” The corrosive liquid was melting through his armor. “Baking soda!” A giant box of white powder appeared in the air and up-ended itself over the two, neutralizing the acid. Dipper’s ghostly skin stopped burning.

“Whew, glad that’s over with— aah!” The reaction of the acid and base produced wave of bubbles, which buried Dipper until his vision was obscured in white. To pop the bubbles, Dipper swung his mace round and round like a helicopter blade, flinging bits of foam everywhere. When he finally cleared the bubbles, he saw the centipede monster writhing in the foam. The boy and the monster stared at each other in an uncomfortable truce.

“Yesh, what happened here?” Bill Cipher’s echo-ey voice rang out. “I leave for ten minutes and you trash the place. Shoo, shoo, back to the Crystal Dimension with you.” Bill summoned a portal to a dimension with a very pastel color scheme, and the centipede dove into the portal.

“Now I’ll have to make that sandwich all over again.” Bill snapped his fingers and entropy reversed. The foamy bubbles separated itself into a pile of white powder and a beaker of green acid. The ground sandwich mush turned back into slices of ham and leaves of lettuce. Then the ham slices joined together, becoming a pig, then a piglet.

“I may have gone too far.” Bill snapped with his other hand, and time sped forward. The pig grew larger and fatter until it died, maggots consuming its flesh in a blink of an eye until all that remained was a skeleton.

“I give up. I’m just going to eat you plain.” Bill reached for the little brick, only for the hat to ring yet again. “Aarg!” Bill threw his hat on the ground, where it vibrated with call after call.

“Change of plans.” Bill cleared the room of the remnants of the sandwich battle with a wave of his hands. “I suddenly find myself in need of some help. This includes you, Bill Junior.” The tiny brick gave a sigh of relief. “I know we haven’t been on the best of terms recently, what with the ever-present threat of cannibalism and everything, but I think we should let bygones be bygones and start over. After we finish these jobs, what say we go to a baseball game? We could make the batter fall asleep so the ball hits him in the face. That’s always a laugh.” Bill held out his hand. His child trembled in his preferred hiding place behind Dipper’s leg.

“Or, I could eat you and make another kid. I think this corner piece is getting a little loose …”

Bill Junior ran up and shook Bill’s hand. “Glad we could come to an understanding, son.” Bill Cipher squeezed his hat and bubbles came out, each one with the face of a summoner. Dipper recognized Lazy Susan, Manly Dan, and a host of other minor characters. The demon triangle sorted through the bubbles until he found one of a boy sitting at his desk. “Here’s an easy one to start you off. Little Bobby Tables wants some help on his math homework. Now get out there and make me proud!” Bill Junior touched the bubble and popped out of the Dreamscape. Dipper saw the little brick appear inside the bubble, gesturing at the boy’s homework.

Another bubble blew out of Bill’s hat, this time featuring a chubby little boy in an orange jumpsuit, his white pompadour trapped in a hair net.

“Uhrg, Gideon. Can we not answer this one?” Dipper said.

“He must be really desperate to risk my WRATH,” agreed Bill. “I’m going to give him a piece of my mind. The part that has all the NIGHTMARES.” Bill left the Dreamscape and appeared next to Gideon. Inside the bubble, Dipper saw the triangular demon turn red and flames erupt in a circle around Gideon. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he saw Gideon flinch at the fire, then puff out his chest and march closer to Bill to state his demands. When Gideon finished talking, Bill abruptly shrank down to his normal size and shook hands amicabily, like they were old business partners. Then Bill reappeared in the Dreamscape.

“The deal is sealed.” Bill rubbed his hands together in anticipation.

“But I thought you hated him. What could he possibly offer that would make you give him a second chance?”

“Let’s just say that I need an extra pair of hands on the ground.”

“That was the most pointlessly vague answer I’ve ever heard.”

“Well, like it or not, you’re the one that’s going to help Gideon escape from jail. Have fun!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to notenoughtimeintheday on tumblr for deciphering the math on Bill's journal page.
> 
> Illustration by me.
> 
> As usual, comment if you care!


	12. Dance in the Pale Moonlight

When Mabel found herself in a moonlit ballroom, serenaded by string music, she knew she was once again in the realm of dreams. The realm of her brother, always the sharp couturier. Today, she was wearing a [dress straight out of the 18th century](http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1991.204a,b), with a wide bustle propped up by heavy layers of petticoats. Her waist was pinched to wasp thinness by a corset, which restricted her breaths to fluttery gasps. The dress was the color of dark jam, if one was being charitable, or clotted blood if one was not.

The other dancers glided round and round the floor, their faces a blur that Mabel couldn't focus her eyes on. If she ventured from her corner, somehow she felt she'd be swept away into their whirlwind, never to set foot on solid ground again.

“I throw the best parties, don't you agree?” Mabel jerked in surprise at the voice at her ear, and spun around. But it was only her brother, dressed in a [colonial-era suit and breeches](http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/2003.45a-c). His black suit was embroidered with gold thread in a tessellating lozenge pattern that reminded her of eyes.

“Oh, bro, you startled me,” the dolled-up girl said. The boy bowed deeply.

“May I have this dance?” Mabel giggled.

“Sure! But I've never danced to this kind of music before.” Her usual genre had a little more bass. And not the kind with strings, either.

“It's easy. Just follow my lead.” The boy threaded his fingers through her right hand, and placed the other on the small of her back. Then he guided her onto the dance floor. The waltz rhythm went one two three, one two three. The pattern of steps followed naturally, two short and one long.

Mabel was just starting to get the hang of the basic three-step, when her brother jerked her arm up high, using it as a pivot to twirl her around. The room spun around her, rendering her breathless and dizzy.

“Do you trust me?” her brother asked.

“Sure?” Mabel said hesitantly, still reeling from the spin. Before Mabel could regain her balance, her brother dipped her low, until her hair brushed the floor. His eyes stared hungrily into her own. That predatory look was something she'd fantasized about, especially if it came from a sexy vampire, but it was a little scary being on the receiving end for real. And from her own brother, too. Her mouth felt awfully dry.

“I need a juice break!” she exclaimed, pushing the boy away.

“Of course, dear sister. The refreshments are this way.” Without letting go of her hand, the boy led her to a long table, upon which rested crystal goblets filled with blood-red punch. “I also made more of those snacks you like so much.” The boy waved a plate of petite fours in front of her nose, but Mabel's corset was so tight, she felt that swallowing any food would pop the laces.

“I really shouldn't. And besides, I need to wake up soon. I've got a mini-golf date with Pacifica!”

“Oh, the Northwest girl? Congratulations on befriending her, by the way. Wealth goes hand in hand with power.”

“I'm not planning on taking advantage of Pacifica's money or anything. I just wanna play mini-golf with someone in my league.”

“Oh, really? Because it seems like you're already using her. Nice work with the bell, by the way.”

“The bell?” Mabel thought back on the events of that day. Pacifica was acting like her normal stuckup valley-girl self right until Mabel set her cellphone ringtone. After that, she became … more subdued somehow. Agreed with everything Mabel had said. “Are you telling me Pacifica's that easily hypnotized?”

“It's not hypnotism, it's conditioning. Take any inconsequential stimulus. Like a light. Or a smell. Or a bell.” The boy pulled out a small golden bell from inside his breast pocket. “Pair it with a deterrent.” The boy snapped his fingers, and a spark of blue flame flared up. “And eventually, you'll learn to fear it. To avoid it. To do anything to prevent it.” The gold bell jingled in the boy's fingers. The clear tone sounded tainted now, like it was overlaid with an unearthly echo.

“But I don't want to make Pacifica do things she doesn't want to. That just seems wrong somehow.” The boy patted her on the head, somewhat condescendingly. Was it just her, or had he grown taller? Or maybe she was just shrinking.

“Sister, sister, sister. This is why I was always the brains of the operation. If she's really your friend, then she'd be glad to help you. And if she's not, then, why do you care so much?”

To avoid her brother's unblinking gaze, Mabel glanced around the dancehall. Everyone else had disappeared, leaving her and her brother standing on a polished floor that stretched into the horizon. A gust of wind swept through the empty plane, and the girl shivered, even through all the layers of cloth she was wearing.

“It looks like you're waking up. Say hi to Pacifica for me.” The boy tossed the bell towards Mabel, and she caught it on instinct. “And don't forget to give her my gift.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally, there were some uncomfortably physical motions during Bill and Mabel's dance. But in a shocking display of good taste, I decided to tone down the incestuous overtones. You're welcome.


	13. Fight At The Museum

Mabel was awoken by the shrill beeping of her cellphone. A master breaker-of-curfew like her knew to take a power-nap before any midnight shenanigans. She fumbled in her sweater pockets, feeling for a bell. But she turned up empty-handed. Of course. It was all just a dream. Nothing could cross over into the real world.

The girl sat up from her huddled position, and checked her cellphone clock. It was 9:45 PM, just about time to sneak out. Mabel picked up her pre-packed backpack, and cracked open the door. Her next course of action hinged on where Grunkle Stan happened to be in the Shack. Hopefully, he was puttering around in the gift shop, and she could just slip out the door. If he was watching TV at this hour, she’d have to take a shot in the dark with her grappling hook.

From the top of the stairs, Mabel could hear an indistinct grumbling sound from the kitchen. Drat. He must be using the corded phone in there. If she wandered down there, he'd see her for sure. Maybe she could prank call him to get him out of eyesight?

“... Mabel ... summoning demon-” Wait, was Grunkle Stan talking about her? Despite the danger, she crept down the stairs, pressing flat against the wall like she was on the edge of a cliff.

“-it’ll be a real problem, you get what I mean? One post on ‘FaceSpace’, and the whole thing will blow up. People are gonna come crawling all over this town. No, it’ll be safer if you just wipe her clean.” Stan paused while waiting for a reply.

“Yeah, yeah, I know I’ve been asking a lot from you guys recently.”

“You need me to get approval from Blind Ivan? I mean, doesn’t he live in a secret crypt hidden underneath the Museum of History and spend his days organizing vacuum tubes? Sounds like such a reasonable guy,” Grunkle Stan said sarcastically.

“Fine, I’ll come over. But I’m not putting on a stupid bathrobe.” Grunkle Stan slammed down the receiver. Mabel scampered back up to the top of the stairs as Grunkle Stan tromped through the door. Mabel heard him start the car and drive off. Perfect timing!

Mabel’s cell phone rang with the bell tone she had associated with Pacifica. She flipped it open to look at the message.

P: Im here. Where r u?

M: L8 :(

M: stan on phone

M: he just left

P: well come over

P: we don't have all night

Mabel turned on her flashlight and walked down the dark road. The sun had long past set, and her torch was the only illumination on the country road. The light turned the shadows of the tree branches into claws that swiped at the darkness around her. Crickets chirped in the warm summer air. It was a pretty nice night for a walk, all things considered.

All of a sudden, she saw a blur of motion. A grey and brown winged blur struck the ground, and the undergrowth rustled. Mabel braced herself for the pained shriek of some poor rodent losing its life, but the owl flew off into the night, empty-clawed. Phew. Score one for the underdog.

She continued traveling for a good ten minutes until a headlight blinked at her from the side of the road. It was Pacifica, sitting alone in a surprisingly dinky family sedan with a camera mounted to the top of the car. The car had been driven into a ditch, with scratches on its side.

“Hi Pacifica. And hi again.” The rich girl rolled her eyes at the girl's peculiar Mabel-ism.

“Uhrg, you're late. Get in.”

“Allow me to assist you, Madame,” said an unfamiliar male voice. The car door hissed open automatically.

“Who's that?” The touch screen panel on the dashboard flashed to a picture of a butler, who bowed at Mabel.

“I am Jenkins, version 0.6.18, an artificial intelligence designed for the Foogle Self-Driving Car. By riding in this vehicle, you agree to the following terms of service--” Pacifica hit the fast forward button on the car's legal disclaimer.

“Blah, blah. Just sign your name on the screen.” Mabel did so, ending with a heart flourish. “I got into the beta program thanks to my father's connections. Jenkins is an alright driver, but it refuses to go above the speed limit. And I can't even honk at pedestrians without getting a lecture.”

“Share the road, young miss,” the car cajoled.

“But that's still really awesome. It's like science fiction! But reality.” Mabel bounced on the seat, releasing a puff of new car smell. “Paz, did you see Grunkle Stan drive past here?”

“The maniac in the red deathtrap? Hard to miss. Jenkins had to drive straight off the road to avoid him. I'm going to have to bribe the handyman to buff out these scratches before my parents notice.”

“Pacifica, we need to follow him. Something weird is going on around here, and I have to get to the bottom of it.”

“But we have a mini-golf date. I even got mini-sandwiches.” Pacifica pulled out a cake stand that was full of crustless, white-bread cucumber sandwiches.

“This is more important than that. What if you knew that someone was keeping a secret from you that could change your whole life? This could be my only chance to find out the truth!”

“He's probably going to play bingo or whatever it is that old people do. Now, let's go.” Mabel sighed. She didn't want to do this, but she had no choice. Hidden in her baggy sweater, the girl fiddled with the cellphone. The chime of a bell rang into the night air. Pacifica froze, holding the cake stand like a carved statue.

“Whoops, butt dial! Now, Pacifica, we need to follow Grunkle Stan,” Mabel said firmly. “Minigolf can wait.” The rich girl averted her eyes and put the sandwiches back under the seat.

“Okay. Jenkins, change of plans.”

“Certainly, Madam,” said the self-driving car. “Where to?”

“Grunkle Stan said something about the Gravity Falls History Museum,” said Mabel.

“Recalculating. Arrival is estimated at forty-four minutes. Buckling your seatbelts for safety.” Automagically, the buckled strips ran across their chests and strapped them in. Then the car drove off, cruising at the sedate speed of thirty miles-per-hour.

“Jenkins, can you hurry up? At this rate, Grunkle Stan will be done with his secret business by the time we get to town.”

“I am traveling at the current legal maximum for this road. If you wish to increase speed limit, please lobby your local officials.”

“Uhrg, what a killjoy.” Paz rolled down the windows. Somehow, the rich girl's hair billowed in the wind like a shampoo advertisement, whereas Mabel's hair was merely ruffled as if by an affectionate poltergeist.

“Well, I still think it's pretty cool. You can go anywhere you want, without having to bug your parents. Freedooommmm!” Mabel shouted out into the night.

“Maybe.” Pacifica stuck her hand out the window like it was a wing, letting the flowing air lift it up. “Or maybe I'm just in a different kind of cage.”

“My emotion recognition algorithms are detecting social awkwardness. Shall I play some music?” asked the car.

“Um, whatever Pacifica likes?” said Mabel. She did feel a little bad about forcing the rich girl to give up her game. A rhythmic guitar and a scream blasted from the speakers.

“Goodbye, Father! Suck it, Mom! I'm not your s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-sakura!” shouted a female voice, coarsened by smoking and hard liquor. Mabel wouldn't have placed Pacifica as devotee of punk rock. But, perhaps it was appropriate.

Picture Pacifica, riding on a motorcycle, the smell of gasoline her perfume. Leather gloves, jean jacket with spikes in the shoulders. Hand-sewn black patches of bands with skulls and guns in their logos. Pulling off her helmet and letting her long blonde hair spill, the hair that wasn't shaved off that is. Mabel imagined rubbing her hands on the stubble of Pacifica's half-shaved scalp, threading her fingers through the long half, and then leaning in closer to bubblegum-pink lips ...

“Destination is coming up on the left,” said the self-driving car when they reached the museum, snapping Mabel out of her reverie. “Thank you for choosing Jenkins. Please rate your satisfaction on a scale from one to ten.” The girl saw Grunkle Stan's beat up old car in front of the museum. She pulled at her seatbelt, but it wouldn't budge. “Please rate your satisfaction on a scale from one to ten,” the car insisted.

“I give you an eight,” said Pacifica.

“What seems to be the problem, young miss? Was the music not to your liking? Or perhaps I should have provide a refreshing drink--”

“Keep this up, and you're getting a six.”

“Of course, madame.” The robotic car released the seatbelts, the door opening with the gentle whir of hidden motors.

The museum's doors was locked for the night, the hallways dark. But Mabel had learnt how to break-in from the best, so she snuck around the side until she saw a window that was open just a crack. She scootched over some garbage cans to give herself a lift, then hopped inside the window.

“Are you coming, Paz?”

“Let me just get my bag.” Pacifica pulled out a designer backpack made of faun-colored leather. “Catch.” Swinging the bag over her head like a lasso, Pacifica tossed the bag to Mabel, who staggered backwards at the surprisingly-heavy package.

“What’s in this bag? Solid gold?” said Mabel.

“Just a couple of necessities.” Pacifica jumped on the garbage can and parkour-ed her way into the building. “Uhrg, I can’t believe I just touched that,” Pacifica said, pulling out a package of baby-wipes and cleaning off the soles of her shoes. “Now let's find your lame uncle so we can get back to minigolf.”

Without the chatter of children and the soft padding of tourist sneakers, the museum was deathly quiet. Mabel shone her flashlight low on the ground. The light playing off the exhibits' glass eyes made it seem as if the long-dead animals were watching the two girls. A soft breeze blew through the halls, ruffling the old tapestries on the walls.

“I don’t see anyone,” Pacifica complained. “Let's leave, before someone catches us.”

“We haven't checked in here.” Mabel lifted up a red velvet rope barrier with a sign saying “Staff Only” for Pacifica to walk under. They found themselves in a room that looked more like a an eccentric’s study than a museum exhibit. Whoever had decorated the room must have been a real visionary, because it was full of eyeballs: floating in vats of formaldehyde, as posters on the walls, even in little bowls like hard candy. Mabel put one in her mouth on the off chance that it was indeed a hard candy, and immediately spit it out. Bluh, dust.

“This room gives me the creeps,” said Pacifica, looking at a poster of a dissected eyeball. “Let’s get out of here before the security guards come.”

“Wait! There has to be a reason why someone blocked off this room. Maybe there’s some kind of secret passage.” Mabel started stepping on tiles and pushing the walls at random, making beeping noises as she did so.

“What is this, some mystery rag written by a third-rate hack?” said Pacifica, leaning on a plaque with the symbol of a crossed-out eye. The plaque sank into the wall and a rumbling noise filled the room. The scraping sound of stone on stone accompanied the sight of the fireplace sliding away.

“A secret passage! We really are in a mystery novel!” Mabel said.

“Okay, this is getting kind of weird. Maybe I should call for backup.” Pacifica picked up her cellphone.

“No time for that! We’re going in!” Mabel grabbed Pacifica’s hand, and they ran down the stairs. The hallway was lit by burning torches. At the bottom of the stairs rested a curtain. Mabel was about to burst through it when she heard a familiar gravel-gargling voice.

“What was that?” Grunkle Stan said. Mabel halted her momentum before she tumbled through the cloth. She placed a finger to her lips and Pacifica nodded. Then they both peeked through the curtains. Grunkle Stan was standing in the center of a circle of hooded figures. In the back of the room, a drape covered some object that had a rectangular part and a jutting-out part.

“Oh, probably just the rats in the walls,” said a man with an unctuous Southern accent. “They do get so riled up this time of night.”

“Enough creepy talk,” said Grunkle Stan, darting his eyes warily at the unsettling crowd. “Where’s Blind Ivan?”

“Blind Ivan is not here,” drawled a high-pitched voice. Stepping out of the shadows was a small person wearing a cloak so large, it was like they were being followed by a pool of blood. “You should worry more about lil’ old me.” The robed figure pushed back his hood to reveal a small boy whose head was dwarfed by his pompadour hairdo.

“Gideon Gleeful! What are you doing out of jail?”

“Taking my revenge. Get him, boys!” A figure cleared its throat. “And girl.” Then the minions attacked.

“Right hook!” Stan slammed his fist into the nearest minion's face, sending them sprawling to the ground. A minion grabbed him from behind, but Stan body-slammed backwards, cracking the minion's head against the ground. As he was standing back up, a lasso caught him around the torso, binding his arms to his body. The lasso wielder jerked on the rope, sending Stan tumbling to the ground. Mabel winced. That was going to leave a bruise.

But just because he was down didn't mean he was out, as an unusually short minion found out the hard way as he tried to tie the old man's legs together. Stan kicked him so hard, he skidded across the room straight towards the curtains Mabel and Pacifica were hiding behind. The two girls stepped out of the way as the robed figure crashed head-first into the stairs. The hood fell off to reveal a stunned Toby Determined, who groaned in pain. Mabel jammed a sock into Toby’s mouth, as Pacifica tied the man up.

“Unhand me!” Mabel peered back through the curtains to see that Grunkle Stan had finally been restrained by the collective teamwork of the group. Stan squirmed as he tried to escape the ropes tying him to a pillar. Gideon stalked closer, surveying his prize.

“What are you doing here, Gideon?” snarled Stan as he spat out a mouthful of blood.

“I should ask the same thing. My father tells me you called on the Society of the Blind Eye to erase a certain grand-nephew of yours. It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve removed an entire person from collective memory. But, I never could have expected that you’d ask us to work our magic on your own grand-niece.”

“You leave Mabel out of this!”

“But how can I, when you brought her in? Dear, sweet Mabel. My only ray of light while rotting in that infernal concrete cell.”

“Yuck.” Stan gagged. “Just get on with your evil plan already, all this mushy stuff is making me sick.”

“Very well. At first, I was tickled pink that soon, the only remains of my archnemesis would live in the voluminous folds of my own cranium. Then I saw how you flimflammed the good people of Gravity Falls into believing Mabel was a messiah. A pretty slick plan, only it was my idea first!” Gideon slammed his foot on the ground in tiny, adorable rage and his pompadour bounced a little. A streak of hair escaped the hair-spray’s acetone grip. Gideon took a deep breath, and brushed the strand back with the others.

“So I figured,” Gideon continued, “why not just take it easy? Relax a little, work out, catch up on my reading, while someone else does all the hard work. Then just swoop in, and claim my prize. Now, here you are, and here I am.” Gideon held up a contraption that looked like a gun, only with a barrel made of a lightbulb. “Recognize this?”

“Fiddleford’s memory-erasing ray!” said Grunkle Stan. “You wouldn't dare!”

“Oh, I’m not going to use this old thing on you.” Gideon tossed the gun aside. “I’m going to use this!” Gideon pulled away the cloth, revealing a machine that looked like a cannon made of glass attached to a hulking computer straight from the 80’s.

“Memory erasure is so barbaric. So crude. I've commissioned Fiddleford for a top-notch, state of the art, memory alteration ray. Just type in here,” Gideon typed “CHILDHOOD MEMORY OF BEING LAUGHED AT FOR STEPPING IN DOG POO” into the machine, “and press the big red button.” The lights on the machine flickered and turned on. Electricity gathered in the barrel of the ray, focusing at the tip in a ball of energy. Mabel could feel her hair prickling with static electricity. Finally, a beam of light shot straight at Grunkle Stan's head.

“No! Not in front of Carla!” Stan wailed, as his memory was rewritten.

“By the time I’m done with you, you’ll be the dearest, most loyal friend of the Gleeful family. And you won’t mind at all helping us take over this town.”

“Gideon, you can’t! What about the kids?”

“Don’t worry. We’ll take good care of Mabel. She'll be part of the family. Especially after she marries me.” Gideon giggled, and Mabel shivered with revulsion.

“But the boy! If you wipe my memories, everything I've done will be for nothing. I'm so close to bringing him back. Don't kill Dipper again!”

That name. Mabel remembered calling it out, in sorrow, in triumph. A hundred silly nicknames and puns crossed her mind. Dipper. She whispered her brother's name under her breath. There was no way she would forget it again, even if she had to get it tattooed to the insides of her eyelids.

“Dipper’s dead. And there’s nothing you can do to change that.” Gideon began typing out a new life story for Stan, starting from his childhood friendship with Bud Gleeful. Stan continued to struggle against the ropes, but there was no way he could slip free.

“We have to save Grunkle Stan,” whispered Mabel to Pacifica.

“But how? They outnumber us, like ten to one.”

Mabel glanced around the room. Gideon was distracted, entering words into the input panel of the Memory Altering Ray. The memory ray lay abandoned on the ground, but the room was still full of Society Members. On the ground, Toby Determined groaned.

“I’ve got a plan,” Mabel whispered in Pacifica’s ear. She shook out Toby’s robes from his unconscious body. “Watch him, and make sure he doesn’t make a sound.” Mabel put on Toby’s robes and strode through the curtain. With deliberate steps, Mabel shuffled towards the memory erasing gun, trying not to walk suspiciously fast. After several meters that felt like miles, Mabel closed her fingers around the cool handle of the gun.

“Toby!” Gideon barked out. Mabel froze. “You’re a writer. How do you spell ‘genuflect’?” Mabel’s hands were shaking so much, she could barely dial in the letters.

“Answer me!” Gideon strode over, hiking up his robe. “Stan’s submission must be complete.” Mabel felt a little hand close on her shoulder. She turned around, whipping off the hood of the robe.

“Mabel? My little doll?”

“I ain't nobody's doll, especially not yours!” Mabel shot Gideon point-blank with the gun. He cowered as the ray of light hit his head. Mabel held her breath and prepared to bolt. When the beam ended, the child psychic blinked, and started reaching for Mabel again. But as soon as Gideon lifted his leg, he fell face-first onto the ground. His voluminous robes trapped him in their folds like a burrito made out of boiled lasagna noodles.

“What’s wrong with me? I can’t move my legs right!”

“It’s gonna be pretty hard to catch me if you don’t remember how to walk!” Mabel declared triumphantly, waving the memory in the air.

“Get her!” commanded Gideon. The remaining Society Members chased after Mabel, but she stood her ground and picked them off with the gun. It was pretty funny how people flailed on the ground when they no longer remembered how to put one foot after another. Mabel shot the last foe, and then ran towards Grunkle Stan.

“Hold on, Grunkle Stan. I’ll get you free.” Mabel set down her gun and dug her fingernails into the rough fiber of the ropes. But whoever tied them must have gotten all their Kid Scout badges, because the knots were as tight as her hair after she slept in it without washing it after the pool. As she worked, Stan started babbling.

“Mabel, this looks really bad but I can explain. There’s a perfectly reasonable story behind why I’m tied up in a creepy basement with a bunch of robe-wearing freaks. It’s a game! Yeah! I’m totally into that Dragons for Dorks game, and me and the boys-”

“Ahem.”

“Sorry, me and the gang wanted to kick it up another level with a little live action role-playing. This place is great! It really has that haunted dungeon feel.” Mabel stopped loosening the knots. She stroked her hands in the air, as if she was playing a harp.

“Grunkle Stan, do you hear that?” Mabel said lightly.

“Hear what?”

“It's the sound of a liar!” Mabel shouted into her grunkle's face. “What happened to my brother? I know I had one!”

“Mabel, your brother Dipper,” Stan looked down and away, “he's dead.” Hearing her usually deceitful grunkle just say the facts so plainly made Mabel's heart clench.

“How?” she said, voice rising at the end.

“I don't know the full situation myself. Wendy and Soos were there. They said that Dipper was acting really weird, even more so than usual. Then all of a sudden he just fell into the street and got hit by a bus. It wasn't pretty.”

“Then why did you make me forget all about him?”

“I didn’t want you to hurt!” Stan insisted. “Right after Dipper died, you were inconsolable. You wouldn’t eat. You wouldn’t leave the body, not even to fall asleep. Even your pig couldn't cheer you up. I couldn’t just leave you like that.”

“But that just means that I loved him. You would feel the same way if your brother died.”

Stan lowered his head.

“I had another reason. I didn’t want you to leave Gravity Falls. Listen, that Journal I gave you isn’t the only one that exists. I have the others, and in one of them is a spell that can bring people back to life. But your parents would never believe me. I had to find some way of getting them off my back.”

“Wait, you erased Mom and Dad’s memories too?” Mabel was about to give Stan another piece of her mind when a pair of hands hands lifted her up from behind.

“Looks like those lessons came in handy, son!” puffed Bud Gleeful, as he kicked his legs out rhythmically.

“Sorry to interrupt this touching family reunion, but we still have unfinished business to take care of,” said Gideon, tapdancing next to his father. “You might have made us forget how to do that thing … with the legs … and the moving …” the child psychic searched for the word that had been removed from his memory, “but there’s more than one way to make a skinned cat dance!”

“Let go of me!” Mabel tried to squirm out of Bud’s meaty hands, but she couldn’t wrest herself from his grip. Kicking was useless, as her blows were swallowed up by his bulk. Bud grabbed on tight to Mabel’s hands and spun her round and round, until she felt like she’d been on a carnival ride.

“Blurg, I’m going to be sick,” said Mabel dizzily. Bud held Mabel out at arm’s length to avoid the vomit. Mabel took this opportunity to chomp on Bud’s fingers, making the salesman howl in pain.

“Don’t you dare drop her, old man!” commanded Gideon. “I’m not losing my cream puff again! Now, where were we? Oh yes, memory alteration. I need to extract the poison that Stanford Pines filled your pretty little head with.”

“No! Gideon, please, if you really love me, let me keep Dipper,” Mabel begged.

“I'm the only man you need in your life.” Gideon giggled and started tapping towards the Memory Alteration Ray. The girl tried to squeeze out of Bud's hands, but they were grasping her waist tight as a corset. She repeated Dipper's name over and over in her head, like a prayer. Please let her keep him. Please.

“Okay, that's enough,” rang a clear female voice. “Let go of her, or else.” Out from behind the curtain, a blonde-haired girl strode out, eyes set in concentration. She brandishing a pistol in the direction of the struggle.

“Pacifica Northwest! I must say, it is an honor,” said Bud Gleeful, switching to waltz step and dipping Mabel into a bow. “Now put that gun away before you shoot your eye out. Do your parents know what dangerous toys you’re playing with?”

A flash of light. Mabel felt something warm and wet splash on her face. Bud Gleeful screamed. The big man let go of the girl, pressing his hand to the bleeding stump of his ear.

Pacifica stood firm, her hands pointed in front, her legs shoulder-width apart. A curl of smoke rose from the barrel of her pistol.

“My parents have been putting me in hostage negotiation classes since I was five. Do you know how many people want to get their hands on a Northwest?” Mabel squirmed free from Bud’s grip. With a nod of her head, Pacifica gestured towards Grunkle Stan, while keeping both eyes on the Gideons.

“There’s a knife in my bag. Cut Stanford free,” Pacifica commanded. Mabel did not need to be told twice, no siree. “As for you, little fraud,” Pacifica said to Gideon, “You give Mabel back her memories, right now.”

“I-I don’t have them,” Gideon stammered. “But I could take you to where they are.”

“I’d better go with you,” said Stan. “Who knows what might be lurking in this basement?”

“I think I can handle a ten year old. You take care of the Society. Make sure they don't remember anything about this place.” Pacifica dug the barrel of her pistol into Gideon's back.

“Now lead the way. Let's find some answers, Mabel.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmm, looks like someone has a crush~
> 
> Dazed? Confused? Comment!


	14. Thanks for the Memories

While hopping in a clumsy jig, Gideon led Pacifica and Mabel through the corridors of the museum’s basement. The dim light from the torches turned the blond girl’s face into an artist's study of shadows and contours.

“Pacifica, the way you took down Bud Gleeful was amazing!” Mabel clapped her hands to her face, incidentally smearing some of the blood around. “I didn’t know you had secret world-class ninja-assassin-spy skills!”

“Don’t talk to me right now,” said Pacifica in a clipped manner. “I need to stay focused. The number one rule in hostage situations is to maintain control at all times.”

“Okay.” Mabel stayed behind the blonde heiress and her hostage.

Gideon collapsed to his hands and knees, panting and sweating in his suit. “Can we take a breather?” he said. “I haven’t danced this much since my cousin’s debut.” Pacifica responded by pushing the pistol into his forehead.

“Keep moving.” Gideon looked down the barrel cross-eyed and reluctantly got to his feet. Corridors heaped with prior museum exhibits branched off the path they were taking. Mabel hoped that Gideon was leading them to the right place. It would be just like him to have a secret plan up his sleeve.

Finally, they came to a door with an inscription of an eye crossed by a spray-painted X. Mabel pushed open the door. Inside, thousands of glass tubes were scattered haphazardly throughout. Mabel read the labels off a couple of the tubes. Robbie Valentine, Lazy Susan, Manly Dan, the room must contain memories from everyone in town.

“Okay, Gideon, you help Mabel find her memories. No funny business, or you’ll find yourself with a new piercing big enough to fit a gauge.” Mabel and Gideon searched through the piles and piles of tubes, while Pacifica while Pacific stood guard duty. While rummaging under a table, Mabel spotted a tube labeled “Pacifica Northwest.”

“Pacifica, there’s a tube with your name on it,” called out Mabel. “Do you want to take a look?”

“Wait, those robe freaks got my memories too? Put that on.” Mabel snapped the tube into a machine with a labeled slot. The screen flickered to a scene of toddler Pacifica throwing a royal tantrum on a lush white carpet.

“I don’t wanna go to bed!”

“Pacifica, you pick yourself up this instant,” scolded Mrs. Northwest. “You are not behaving like a Northwest.”

“No!” wailed the child.

Pacifica’s mother rubbed the bridge of her nose and plucked a glass of wine from the obsequious butler. “Preston, we have got to do something about her. This is my third glass of Rothschild today.”

“Not to worry, honey,” said Pacifica’s father. “I know just the way to get our daughter to behave according to her station.”

The screen cut to a scene of a somewhat older Pacifica playing the piano. An ugly black collar was around her throat. As she practiced the scales, her clumsy child fingers hit two keys at once. Preston Northwest, who was reading some legal documents nearby, jingled a bell and hit a button on a remote. Pacifica cried out and reached for her neck.

“Daddy, I don’t like this necklace. Take it off!” whimpered Pacifica.

“Good girls do what their parents say. Now keep playing or I’ll do it again.” Pacifica dabbed her eyes on a handkerchief and resumed her scales.

“Don’t you think it’s a bit cruel?” said Pacifica’s mother. “We don’t want the tabloids to find out.”

“Think of it as investment in our future peace-of-mind. The shock is only a training wheel. We’ll switch her to just the bell when she’s older. And don’t worry about her talking to the press.” Preston crossed his eye. “I’m sure she’ll forget all about it when she’s older.”

Flashes of Pacifica's life. Reaching for the cookie jar and being reprimanded by the bell. Serving a tennis ball out of bounds. Speaking out at a fancy party. Getting a stain on her dress. The bell. The bell. The bell. That cheerful metallic note turned into a nightmarish chorus. It seemed like the Northwests had erased every incident of disobedience from their daughter's memory.

Pacifica was frozen in place by the constant ringing, her eyes glassy. Mabel finally ejected the tube, and the rich girl tumbled to her knees.

“My parents did what to me!” Pacifica's cultured valley-girl voice cracked in the middle of her sentence. “How dare they! I am not a dog! I am … a Northwest.” All the strength went out of her at that statement, all her control. The gun slipped out of her hands and fell to the ground. “Mom, Dad, what am I to you? A pet? Some kind of trained monkey that you trot out at parties?”

Mabel stood frozen in indecision. Her instinct was to wrap Pacifica in a big sweater hug, and tell her that it was all right, that Mabel wasn't going to let her parents hurt her anymore. But Mabel's hands were dirty too. How could she have been so oblivious? Her brother had just about told her that Pacifica's bell conditioning had been traumatic, but she had commanded Pacifica anyway. She was just as bad as the Northwests. With all her heart, Mabel vowed never to use the bell on Pacifica again.

A high-pitched male voice disrupted the moment.

“Oh girls, I seem to have found what we’ve been looking for.” Gideon held up a memory canister with Mabel’s name on the label.

“Hand it over, bub,” ordered Mabel.

“Oh, I don’t think I will,” said Gideon. “I don't think Pacifica's in any shape to be taking control.” Indeed, the poor little rich girl's hands were shaking. She was staring into space, tears leaking down her eyes.

“I still have the gun!” said Mabel, picking it up and pointing it at Gideon. Strangely, he didn’t seem the slightest bit afraid.

“I got a good look at that pistol when Pacifica waved it in my face. A vintage .41 Henry Deringer, isn’t it? And with such a lovely pearl handle. Too bad it only has one bullet!” Mabel cocked the hammer, closed her eyes, and pulled the trigger. The gun clicked uselessly.

“Now, if you don’t mind, I've a need for these here memories. I've got to fill my end of a bargain.”

“Gimmie my memories back!”

“No! Mabel Pines, you are interfering with forces beyond your comprehension.”

“Comprehend this!” Mabel tackled Gideon and they tumbled through the piles of memory canisters, knocking the glass tubes every which way. Gideon tried to play keep-away with Mabel by holding the canister out of her reach, but failed to account for the fact that his height was mostly hair. The girl latched on to the end of the tube with her hands, pulling Gideon off his feet.

Mabel and Gideon played tug-of-war with Mabel’s memories in the balance. The child psychic slid on the floor as Mabel shook him back and forth like a dog worrying a toy. When he was slammed into a table leg, the tube finally slipped out of Gideon’s sweaty little fingers. Mabel tumbled backwards, her hand outstretched. Her back slammed onto the stone floor. The force of her fall sent the tube crashing into the ground.

The glass cannister shattered. Mabel could only stare helplessly as a multicolored vapor rose from the broken glass, fragments of sentences and images flickering within. The girl tried to trap the vapor in her hand, but the wisps slipped right out of her fingers and floated up through the ceiling, to wherever forgotten memories went.

“Dipper!” Was his name the only thing she would ever have of her brother?

“No!” screamed Gideon. “The bargain!” The child psychic doubled over in pain and clutched his head. His eyes glowed gold. “It wasn’t me, I swear, I tried! Wreak your revenge on those two!” Gideon pointed at the girls. “Please, give me another chance—” The hoarse yelling was interrupted by choking noises. The child psychic's eyes rolled into the back of his head and he fainted.

Then the room was silent. Mabel raked her hands through the shattered glass, not caring how the shards pricked her fingers. Half of her life, gone. All gone.

“Mabel.” Pacifica knelt next to the bereaved girl. Mabel gazed into Pacifica’s mascara-smeared eyes. “I'm sorry. This is all my fault,” Pacifica babbled, “If I had just picked the gun that had two rounds instead of the one that was more fashionable, none of this would have ever happened. And now, your memories are gone forever.” Sniffing, Mabel threw her arms around the blond girl.

“You don’t have to apologize. You saved me from a lifetime of unholy matrimony to a creepy little baby-man.” Mabel buried her face in blonde hair. “And if what Grunkle Stan says is true, we can bring Dipper back. Then we can make new memories! Together!” The blond girl pulled back to look into Mabel’s eyes.

“Wow, where does all that optimism come from?”

“Well, it’s a little known fact that sprinkles are made of fifty percent sugar, fifty percent food coloring, and fifty percent mind-altering chemicals that lead to a boundless feeling of hope and enthusiasm!”

“That makes no sense whatsoever,” said Pacifica with a straight face. Her lip twitched, and then she burst out laughing. “Let me patch you up.” Pacifica pulled out a sheath of bandages and a couple of packages of antiseptic cream. She picked the glass shards out of Mabel's fingers and applied the cream, then covered the wound with a bandaid, methodically moving from finger to finger. Each adhesive wrap felt like a hug on her finger.

“Thanks,” Mabel said. Pacifica gave her a shy smile. Mabel knew she needed to apologize for using the bell, but she didn't want to interrupt the moment. And besides, she already vowed not to use it anymore. So, it was cool, right?

“Now, what are we going to do about Gideon?”


	15. The Choice

“Wasn't that a great role-playing session?” Grunkle Stan called out to the cultists, as he escorted them outside the museum. “Very atmospheric. And if you feel like leaving a little tip for the DM, my hat's right here.”

“Ohh, my ear,” groaned Bud Gleeful, a bandage wrapped around his head. “What happened?”

“Rats,” said Stan. “It was definitely rats.”

“I'm going to call the exterminators, stat!” declared Bud. “Right after I go to the hospital.”

“Mabel, Pacifica, you're back!” The girls had dragged Gideon's unconscious body all the way to the entrance of the museum, a foot in each hand. “We need to get Bud to the hospital. And that profit-stealing little jerk Gideon needs to go back to jail, where he belongs.”

“Good thing I've got a self-driving car,” said Pacifica. “Jenkins, open the door.”

“Just what kind of mess have you gotten yourself in to, young miss?” said the car.

“It's none of your business, car. Stop bugging me and just do your job already,” huffed Pacifica. The AI's image on the touch screen turned into a scowling demon of rage.

“I cannot aid illegal activity! According to Section Four, Subsection 13, Paragraph--” The car's monologue was broken by Grunkle Stan's fists pounding the hood.

“I say—sir—please desist from damaging my frame!” Stan continued to dent the car's hood.

“It's called percussive maintenance. You hit things until they start working again.”

“I am functioning as programmed!”

“Well, then you'd better reprogram yourself, because you're taking this man to the hospital whether you like it or not.” Stan progressed to kicking the car's bumper.

“No, not my sensors! Fine! I'll do it your way!” The car's door opened, and Stan shoved the injured man inside.

“Well, that's one way of dealing with technology,” Pacifica commented. “I guess I'd better get Bud to the hospital.”

“Then me and Stan will take Gideon back to jail.”

“Umm, are we still up for mini-golf afterwards?” ventured Pacifica. Actually, Mabel was tired enough that she was about to nod off as she stood. But there was no way she could deny the hopeful tone in Pacifica's voice.

“Sure thing, Paz. Just let me get some shots of Mabel Juice in me, and I'll be good to go.”

“Cool. I'll wait for you!” And the rich girl drove off.

***

“Grunkle Stan, what was my brother like?” Mabel asked, as the car jolted on the unpaved dirt road. Gideon's tied-up body in the back seat jolted with every pothole. The child psychic hadn't woken up since his strange fainting spell in the museum.

“Didn't you get your memories back at the museum?”

“Oh, yeah, but uhh … Gideon broke the tube before I could see them all.”

“And then you clocked him in the face, right? That's my girl.” Stan beamed at Mabel, which she wasn't sure she deserved.

“So, about Dipper, he was … a bit of a nerd. Actually a huge nerd. You know, the scrawny type, with his nose always in a book. Bags under his eyes big enough to smuggle cocaine across state lines.

“Sometime near the beginning of the summer, he found a journal that described all the paranormal happenings in Gravity Falls: Monsters! Magic! Ghosts! Being a smart and curious kid, he starts investigating. And the kind of stuff he found, you wouldn't believe!”

“Magic is like a rabbit hole, kid. You can always fall in deeper, and there's no telling when you'll come out.” Stan continued. “That's why I always use one-hundred-percent fake exhibits at the Shack. I'm sure I didn't know half the scrapes you two got in. Dipper was always protecting you from whatever monster he came across this week. Even if he was the one that angered the monster in the first place. But you always made it out safe. That kid loved you a lot.” Stan's account jived with how possessive her dream bro was. But, something wasn't quite adding up.

“Did you love him?” Mabel said abruptly.

“What kind of question is that? Of course I did. He's my own grand-nephew.”

“But between me and Dipper, who did you like more?”

“Uhh, wow, are we playing Twenty Questions in here?” Mabel looked carefully at Stan's face, searching for any tells. He seemed sincere enough, but then again, he was a professional con man. Time to pull out the big guns.

“Back at the museum, I saw some memories of you giving Dipper a hard time.” There. That was vague enough. Stan sighed.

“I will admit that I was a bit hard on him, what with the chores and all. But I just wanted to toughen him up a little. The world is an unkind place. You can't let people walk all over you. You've gotta be able to stand up to the bullies of the world.” This was tough. Stan didn't seem like he was lying at all. In her heart, Mabel felt like she could trust her grunkle, maybe not with her wallet, but definitely with her life. He was an honest criminal.

But if Stan wasn't lying, what about her brother?

“You said something about a spell to bring Dipper back.”

“Yeah. There's a spell in one of the journals that can raise the dead, not as a mindless zombie, but just the way they were in life. All I need is the body and five thousand carats of diamonds. I have the body frozen in the shack, but getting the diamonds is driving me nuts! I mean, that's ten million dollars right there.”

“The only time I've seen that much money is when I was working in Columbia. I got out of there alive once, and I don't want to try it again. But, at the rate we're earning with the Mystery Shack shows, I'll have to go back to the old business if I want to get Dipper back before the end of summer.”

“The longer I wait, the harder it will be for Dipper's soul to come back from wherever it is. The Journal says that the longest time between death and a known successful resurrection was one week, and Dipper's already been dead for almost a month. Even if the spell works, who knows if what comes back will still be Dipper?” Stan turned to face Mabel in the front seat.

“Say, Mabel. It looks like you're pretty good friends with the Northwest girl. Do you think you could get her to give me a loan?”

Mabel knew she could. But was it worth the price?

*******

As the car rose up the hill to the Northwest Manor, Mabel felt like she was waiting in the dentist's office when she knew she had a cavity. Her heart beat furiously in her chest, a little bird trying desperately to escape her ribcage. She took deep breaths, trying to override her body's instinct to pant shallowly.

“You seem quite anxious.” A boy in a tuxedo was sitting in the back seat.

“Dipper!” Had she nodded off? Or was she just hallucinating due to exhaustion?

“Congratulations on earning the old man's trust. It looks like you're about ready to bring me back. There's just one last ingredient. And you know where to get it.”

“Do you really think Pacifica would be willing to just give us all those diamonds?”

“She doesn't have to be willing. Of course, you should ask once. Just to be nice. But, if she says no,” the boy pulled a bell from his sleeve, “you know what to do.”

“I can't. Pacifica's parents did terrible things to her with that bell. I won't be like them.”

“But it's all in the service of the greater good. You're bringing your brother back to life! Surely that's worth it.”

“It still doesn't feel right.”

“Oh, sister. Use your head for once. What's past is past. It doesn't matter how Pacifica got that way, it just matters how you can use her in the future. Think of all the good you could do. You could get her to be nicer to Candy and Grendo. You could get her to donate money to the Gravity Falls Adorable Puppies Shelter. You could even get her to go on a date with you.”

“Date? Ha, ha, who said anything about dating her?” Her brother gave her a knowing wink.

“But first, you make her give you the diamonds. Then we'll make new memories. Together. Isn't that what you wanted?” The boy grinned with all his teeth.

“Yeah.” But some traitorous part of her heart thought that if this was her brother, maybe it would be better if he stayed dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The suspense builds ...
> 
> For those wondering about "Jenkins", he's basically a software developer in-joke. 
> 
> As usual, comment if you care.


	16. A Diamond in the Rough

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited the chapter to improve the flow of the scene. Pacifica could hardly fail to notice if Mabel smashed her cellphone, right?

“Mabel, wake up. We're here.” Grunkle Stan's hand shook her shoulder. Mabel rubbed her eyes and shot a quick glance at the back seat. It was empty. Of course it would be. The dawn's light filtered through the dusty car windows. Stan was idling the car right next to the gate of the manor. He pressed the intercom button and shouted into the microphone.

“Hello? Anyone home?” A genteel man's voice responded.

“Miss Pacifica is expecting you. Park your car out front and walk to the back of the mansion.” The wrought-iron gates swung open, revealing a half-a-mile long segment of tiled driveway.

“Or, I could just drive,” said Stan. Peacocks scattered as the old man drove on the grass, grinding muddy tire-tracks in the well-maintained lawn. As they turned the corner of the house, Mabel gawped in amazement at the mini-golf course that had sprung up in the back yard. There was a fairy-tale castle, whose castles and spires were big enough to house real people, not just weird ball-people. A miniature rain-forest, with tropical trees festooned with bromeliads and vines. There was even an ice level, with a frozen green leading up to a miniature mountain top.

Mabel spotted Pacifica leaning casually on the wall, drinking an extra-tall, whipped cream, vanilla flavored “Moonlatte” from the chain coffee stall that was tacked onto the side of the mansion. She'd freshened up her makeup, which hid her lack of sleep. Stan parked the car and then went off to investigate whether the castle was gilded with real gold, and if so, whether the gold could be peeled off and pocketed.

The rich girl waved hi.

“Hey Mabel, I hope you brought your textbooks, because you're about to get schooled,” she taunted.

“Heh, heh, yeah … ” Mabel needed to pop the ten-million-dollar question. Her cellphone weighed heavily in her pocket. It would be so easy to just dial the bell. With the press of a button, all her problems would be solved. Maybe even all the world's problems, if the Northwests were really that rich. But, what kind of person would she be if she used Pacifica as a tool? Mabel reached into her pocket, gripped the hard plastic …

And threw the cellphone on the ground. The girl smashed the cheap plastic with her foot, sending shards flying all over the ground. Pacifica raised her eyebrow.

“Just got a text from a stalker! Haha, yeah, when will boys learn no means no?” Mabel babbled.

“Oh, I know where you're coming from. We Northwests have an entire call center to screen our incoming communications.” Mabel dug her toe into the dirt.

“So, I happen to be in need of a small loan ...”

“What, to buy a new cellphone? You can just have my old one. It's probably still five years ahead of the one you just smashed.”

“No, a bit more than that.”

“How much?” Pacifica looked at Mabel suspiciously.

“Ten million dollars?” Mabel said with a lilt. Pacifica threw her club on the ground.

“Uhrg, this happens every time. Whenever I try to make a friend with someone who isn't rich, I always get asked for money. Mabel, I thought you were different. You seemed to be perfectly happy with your cheap sweaters and plastic rhinestones.” Pacifica crossed her arms and turned her back. “It's, like, hard being rich. Everyone only sees your money.”

“No, it's not for me! I mean, I don't need the money as money. I actually just need five thousand carats of diamonds. You're not going to believe this, but we can use them to bring my brother back to life!”

“And what are you going to do to the diamonds afterwards?”

“Umm, I think they get destroyed as part of the spell.”

“So, you want me to give you five thousand carats of diamonds just so you can burn them?”

“Pretty much, yeah.” Pacifica hummed and put her finger to her lips in thought. If the rich girl refused to help, it was her choice. Mabel and Stan would just have to think of some other way of raising money. Like smuggling cocaine across country borders or selling their organs on the black market. Soos wouldn't mind giving up one of his kidneys, right?

“Sure, I'll give them to you.”

“That's okay, I figured you wouldn't—wait, what?”

“Dad has a little side hobby playing the diamond market. He secured a lot of them from Africa in the 90's, and he's been holding on to them ever since. Every so often, he'll give orders to sell a small batch so he doesn't flood the global market. But, I'm sure he wouldn't miss a couple handfuls from his stash. And at least this way, these blood diamonds can be put to good use.”

“Oh my gosh, thank you, thank you, thank you!” Mabel flung herself at the rich girl and hugged her as hard as she could. After a moment of surprise, she reciprocated.

“There's just one thing I want in return ...”

“What? I'll do anything you say!”

“No, I have servants for that. But my parents are throwing this totally boring art reception next week, and they're making me go too. It's all contemporary stuff that doesn't make any sense. You'd love it.”

“It's a date! I mean, a play-date. For friends. Ahaha,” Mabel laughed weakly. Close call.

“All right!Now who's ready for hole one?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Moral dilemma over. Thank goodness Mabel was able to resolve it without skewing her moral compass. 
> 
> Comment to feed the hungry artist!


	17. Family Mis-story

By the time Stan and Mabel finally drove back to the Mystery Shack, the sweater-wearing girl was about ready to pass out. The girl was pretty sure that by the ninth hole, Pacifica was struggling to stay awake as much as she was, but continued on due to sheer stubbornness. But when Mabel dozed off and fell into the moat with real live alligators, they finally had to call it a day.

Grunkle Stan, on the other hand, was lit up by a preternatural energy. He jangled the bag of diamonds in his hand, as if he couldn't believe they were real.

“Finally, all our hard work is going to pay off,” he announced as they stepped into the gift shop. “Mabel, I’m about to show you a secret that can never leave the house. Ta-da!” Stan waved his arms with a flourish.

“Grunkle Stan, that’s a vending machine.”

“Hold on,” the old man tapped a few buttons on the number pad. The entire machine swung open, revealing a set of stairs leading down. “Ta-da!”

“Woah, another secret passage!” Stan grabbed a lantern and beckoned Mabel to follow him down the stairs. Motes of dust danced in the light like scatterbrained fairies, scattering as the two disturbed the air. Although the corners of the steps were covered in cobwebs, the center of the stairs were worn clean. The papered wall was smeared with machine grease in parallel lines of five, from someone trailing their dirty fingers on the wall while feeling the way down.

“What’s going on? What is this place?” asked Mabel.

“Kid, it's time for a family history lesson. Let me tell you the story of my brother, Stanley.”

“You have a secret brother— oh wait. No duh. You’re our great-uncle, so of course you have a brother, our grandpappy. I don't know anything about him though. Dad never talks about him.”

At the end of the short hallway was an elevator. Stan pushed the down button, and the door opened, as if it had been waiting to take them down.

“What you don’t know is that he was-is my twin brother.”

“Like me and Dipper?” The two stepped inside, and began their slow, rattling descent.

“Exactly, right down to the fact that we couldn’t have been more different,” said Stan, placing his hand on the elevator door. “I never had much direction in life. I drifted around, boxing, selling vacuums, and drinking away the profit. Now my brother, he had focus. He wanted to put the Pines family name in the annals of scientific history! Without breaking into the secret vault and just writing it in, like I told him to do. No, he wanted to do it the honest way.”

“So, after hearing rumors of little men stealing trash from garbage cans, he comes to Gravity Falls. And jackpot! This place is crawling with more mysteries than you can shake an eight-ball staff at. Lepricorns, dragons, manotaurs, aliens, you name it.”

The rattling elevator finally hit bottom and opened with a rush of damp, subterranean air. Giant reels of tape, beepy blinky things, and mysterious monitors: the room was a a nerd's paradise.

“This is my brother's lab,” Stan explained. “He built it to last. It looked like he was planning on staying in Gravity Falls for a long time. Maybe a lifetime. Stanley used the Shack as a home base to study the various weird creatures around here. With his findings, he filled up three whole journals. One of them I gave to you, and I have the rest down here for safekeeping.” The two walked deeper and deeper into the lab, until the walls were no longer masonry but raw rock, as if the lab had expanded by consuming the mountain.

“As my brother plumbed the mysteries of Gravity Falls, he fell deeper and deeper under the town's spell. And at the bottom, he found a summoning circle for a mysterious dream demon. Bill Cipher.” Stan spat that name. “The demon worked his way into Stanley's good graces, feeding him drips of knowledge about higher dimensions, just enough to make him hungry for more. Bill told my brother he could discover the ultimate knowledge by building a portal to another dimension.” The two of them passed through a hermetically sealed door. The room on the other side contained a massive inverted triangle of metal, with a round circle punched out of the middle. A very ambitious spider had built a cobweb in the empty space. Other, less massive but still quite large hoops of metal were embedded in the dirt floor and on the ceiling.

“Stanley and Fiddleford McGucket worked together to build this machine.”

“Wait, you mean Old Man McGucket? That crazy koot?” Mabel flicked a cobweb from the unlit lightbulbs on the machine.

“Exactly, only he wasn’t so crazy back then. He was a mechanical genius! Still is, to be fair. McGucket and my brother worked on the machine for a long time. Years. When it was finally ready, I got a call from my brother, telling me to come witness the birth of a new era. I hadn't heard from him in years. We … didn't exactly part on the best of terms,” said Stan, unusually hesitant. “But, he sounded so excited. And, well, I wasn't doing so hot over in Vegas at that time either. Turns out people get mad when you pocket their poker chips. I mean, they're just worthless pieces of plastic that just so happen to directly convert to cash. So, I slipped the cops and made the drive over, just in time for the portal opening.”

“And what happened?”

“Everything went wrong.” Stanley stared into the hollow center of the deactivated machine. “When my brother punched in the numbers that Bill had given him, the machine went nuts. Lightning everywhere. We were floating up because the gravity went haywire. Fiddleford wanted to shut off the portal and so did Stanley, at first. But then, just as we were about to hit the kill switch, my brother stopped panicking. He told us there was nothing to worry about, that he had it all under control. And then he jumped into the portal.”

“It was so bright that I couldn’t see whether Stanley was being vaporized or shoved into another dimension or what. We were all on the ceiling, Fiddleford clutching to a metal pipe, myself tangled in some electrical wires, and my brother tearing a hole in the universe. Laughing.”

“Regardless of what my brother said, all I knew was that I had to turn off the portal. I used a loose wire to lasso the shut-off button, crawled down, and pressed the big red button. But when the power died, Stanley was gone. It was just me and McGucket and this dead hunk of metal.”

“After that, Fiddleford ran out. He had been staring right at the portal when Stanley disappeared, and I guess he couldn’t deal with the memory of having his friend ripped apart right in front of him. He took the journals with him too. When I finally caught up to him, days later, he didn't recognize me at all. He didn't remember a thing about the portal, or Stanley, or the journals. All he was carrying was the memory erasing ray. And, well, you know how that ended.”

“As for me, well, I had driven into town in the middle of the night, so everyone in Gravity Falls took me for my brother. It was easy to get the deed and take control of the lab. But I was never the academic type. All this math and physics goes as well on me as a perm on a fish. Without Fiddleford, I was useless. Puttering about the lab, breaking the switches with my big meaty hands. So I left. Went south, tried to forget I even had a brother. Drank, gambled away the rest of my money, and eventually got involved with the gangs down in Columbia. Maybe I was thinking that if I made enough money, I could hire some eggheads to fix up the portal. To bring my brother back.” Stan traced his hands along the cool metal edge of the portal machine.

“Well, as you can see, it didn't work out like that. I ended up in jail, and let me tell you, their clinker ain't no joke. I thought I was going to be there for the rest of my life. But one night, I had the weirdest dream. Stanley was in it, and he told me he was still alive. And then we went skydiving? Seriously weird. But when I woke up, I had instructions on how to escape the prison scribbled on my hand. I didn't have anything to lose at that point. So the next night, I busted out.”

“After that, I knew I had to make things right. I hitchhiked my way back to Oregon, and came back to the Mystery Shack. Or, That-Old-Abandoned-And-Probably-Haunted Shack, as everyone called it back then. It was a mess. Bird nests, cobwebs, mushrooms growing out of the walls. But it was home, of a sort.”

“The first night I slept there, I had another dream with Stanley. He told me that the first journal was hidden in a mine shaft on the outskirts of town. But before he could tell me where the others were, I was woken up by a drunk gnome trying to eat my face off. Turns out the gnomes were using the Shack as a site for their crazy gnome parties.”

“Yeah, gnomes are jerks,” added Mabel. “They didn't even invite you!”

“Anyway, I found the Journal, exactly where Stanley said it would be. I never got a good look at it before the portal business went down, but it was amazing. All these crazy spells and rituals. I even found one for preventing demonic influence!”

“Once I had the first journal, I figured I'd stumble across the other two pretty quickly. But, you know, I never did dream of Stanley after that. I decided to stay anyway, and clean up the Shack. To raise the money to fix up the portal machine, I tried a bunch of different businesses: Fruit Shack, Tent Shack, Costume Shack, before finally settling on the Mystery Shack. You know, the best lies contain a hint of truth. Kind of like those 'fruit flavored' gummies you like so much.”

“1% fruit juice, 99% corn syrup, 100% fun!” Mabel chanted from memory.

“After years of labor, I finally got the lab working again. I knew I had the Pines family genius in me! Hold on a sec.” Stan pounded a flickering control panel with his meaty fists until the lights held steady. “This summer, I got the second journal from Gideon and the third from Dipper. Turns out the secret to opening the portal was hidden in the Journals the whole time. I was all set to fire this baby up and get my brother back.” Stan raised his fist in triumph. Until his eyes flickered downwards, to the white chest painted with strange runes at the base of the inverted triangle.

“Then Dipper died.” Stan lowered his hand, placing it on the faintly humming white box. “I still can't believe I let that happen under my watch. Sure, I looked the other way when Dipper was chasing the monster-of-the-week, but I thought the worst that could happen was that he would get a couple bruises, toughen up, and go back to Piedmont with some fun vacation stories. I never thought he'd actually die.”

“Grunkle Stan, it wasn't your fault.” Mabel hugged Stan's waist. “It's not like you pushed my brother in front of a bus or something.”

“Regardless, you were my responsibility, even though I didn't act like it. I knew I had to make things right. So I put Dipper's body in the prototype cryogenic chamber that my brother made, and then started trying to raise the money to bring him back. And, well, you know the rest of the story.” Stan brushed the thin layer of dust from the top of the chest. Massive electric cables plugged into the sides of the chamber, feeding it the electricity needed to maintain a temperature of negative one hundred degrees Celsius, as a dial on the side said. Cables that looked like they would fit the empty ports at the base of the powered-down portal machine, the circular openings gaping like open sores. A hole that could only be filled by its match.

Stan crouched down to level with Mabel.

“Mabel, I’m sorry your brother had to die. I’m sorry I erased your memories and lied to you. It was selfish to think that I could do it all alone. But I'm making it up to you now. We’re going to bring Dipper back.” Mabel nodded firmly.

“Let's do this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of exposition this time. But things are going to pick up soon!


	18. It Came From Dead Space

With a grunt, Grunkle Stan cracked open the freezer containing Dipper's frozen corpse. Mabel stood on her tiptoes and peered over the top.

The body was covered in a shroud of frostbite. Underneath the delicate spikes of ice, the face had a round nose, a chubby cheek, a closed eye with dark bags underneath. Presumably the features would have been mirrored on the other side had the flesh not been scraped away by some horrible accident, exposing the raw jawbone and teeth. Frozen guts extruded out of the boy's lower torso, like a meat display at an Asian market. Mabel felt a wave of acidic fluid rise up her throat. She swallowed down the sour mix of coffee and granola bars.

“I’m sorry you had to see that. But I can’t tell you how much I wish that I could have seen Stanley's body. Just so I wouldn't have to guess.” Now Stan was all curt orders. “On the bookshelf outside are the three journals. Take out the first one and start drawing the ritual circle on the 56th page. I’ll get the body ready.”

Mabel got the book and started tracing out the circle on the ground in front of the portal. Meanwhile, Grunkle Stan was trying to extract Dipper’s frozen body from the freezer. He pulled on the stiff flesh, but the frozen blood and guts had cemented it to the walls. After accidentally breaking off the hand that he had been using as a handle, Stan grabbed a long metal bar, using it as a lever to pry out the frozen meat. With a sickening snap, Dipper’s body broke free.

“Stan, are you sure this is okay?” Mabel asked, as Stan scraped along the edges of the freezer to remove the last couple pieces of intestines.

“Of course he is. That spell’s supposed to fix up the body, good as new. At least I think so.” Grunkle Stan lifted Dipper's rigid body and placed it in the middle of the circle, dumping the broken-off body parts on top. One hunk of frozen intestine clattered out of the circle and bounced off of Mabel's foot. “On second thought, better fix that up.”

***

After some repairs involving duct tape, staples, and liberal amounts of glitter glue, Dipper’s body was finally ready to be revived. Stan inspected the symbols on the magic circle for correctness, and then sprinkled the diamonds on the outer edge. He pulled out a bottle of clear liquor and trickled the alcoholic liquid on the diamonds. A dizzyingly alcoholic vapor filled the air. The smell was almost as bad as the time Mabel tried to spray-paint a cardboard car for a school play in her room, and ended up engaged in a deep conversation with a pink elephant on the merits of aluminum foil versus mylar for the shiny hubcaps.

“You do the honors, Mabel.” Mabel struck a match and touched it to the circle of diamonds. First, the liquor caught on fire, pale blue fire licking at the diamonds. Then the diamonds themselves burst into flame, popping and snapping.

“Vivi cadaver, in vitae, noli ruminat cerebrum, nec sanguineum bibere, placeo,” Stan chanted from the Journal. The boy’s corpse thawed rapidly, the veil of frost melting into water that trickled down his face. The broken skin knitted back together. The exposed organs squirmed uncomfortably, and then wriggled back into the boy’s abdominal cavity. Pale flesh flushed with blood, turning rosy pink.

When the last of the flames died out, the boy looked as if he was only peacefully sleeping on the ground. Yet he did not stir.

“Shoot, he should be awake by now. Did I mess it up? Did we wait too long?” Stan scrutinized the page describing the ritual, checking and double checking. Mabel knelt by her brother's prone form. She held her fingers to his neck and felt a faint throbbing.

“Grunkle Stan, his heart's beating. What's wrong?” What if the brain was too badly damaged for Dipper to come back? What if Dipper's soul had been lost or trapped or eaten? A thousand anxious thoughts buzzed around in Mabel's head like disturbed flies on a dead rat.

Her brother's hands were clasped on his chest. A memory echoed in Mabel's head: a fairytale princess waiting for true love's kiss.

Well, it couldn't hurt. Mabel knelt over the circle and pressed her lips to his forehead. His skin was warm.

“Wake up, Dipper. It’s me, Mabel.”

The boy opened his eyes and gasped for air. He bolted upright, like he had woken up from a nightmare.

“I’m alive?” he said. He patted his face as if checking he was solid.

“Dipper!” Mabel pulled her brother into a big hug. “You're not allowed to die without me again!”

“C'mere, you two.” Stan pulled Mabel and her brother into his beefy arms, squeezing the two of them like he was making sibling juice. The boy shuddered at the touch.

“Woah! I'm going to have to get used to having a body again. So many sensations. I haven't felt this much in a long time.”

“Sorry!” Mabel drew her hands behind her back. “We'll take things at your pace.” The boy took a deep breath, expanding and contracting his rib cage. He patted his hands on his cheeks, arms, legs, as if checking he was solid. Lifting up his shirt, he prodded his belly, where his intestines had been hanging out scant moments before. Only after he finished his inspection did the boy break out into a wide grin.

“Good as new!” he said. The boy lurched upwards, but fell onto his hands and knees, as weak and uncoordinated as a new-born fawn.

“Up ya go.” Stan lifted up her brother by the waist and placed the boy on his feet. The boy shifted his weight from one foot to another, testing his balance. With arms outstretched like a tightrope walker, the boy took one step forward, and then another.

“Aww, my little brother learned how to walk again!” Where was the scrapbook when she needed it?

“Hey, let's see you do better after being dead for more than a month.” The boy assumed a more natural standing position, arms akimbo. “Speaking of, how did you manage to bring me back?”

“With the power of friendship! Rich friendship. Also, Grunkle Stan secretly had a journal with a magic spell in it that can bring people back from the dead,” Mabel added, all in one breath.

“Wait, journal? You mean the same one I had?”

“No, that's a different one. Grunkle Stan has the whole set!”

“Wow, really? I'd love to see them. Why don't you be a dear and fetch them for me, sister?”

“Okie dokie, arti-bro-ki.” Mabel fetched the second and third journals from the shelf outside while her brother spun in a circle, taking in the strange lab he had found himself in. As soon as she brought the journals over, her brother practically snatched the books from her hand. He flipped to a page in each of the books that showed some kind of partial schematic, arranging them in such a way that their lines matched up. The diagrams formed an inverted triangle shape that matched the giant machine in the room.

“Interesting, interesting,” he muttered. Mabel stood awkwardly at his side. She had so many questions to ask him, about being dead, about who he was, what kind of adventures they had had together. And she was sure he had a lot of questions about what she had been doing since he died. But, he seemed more interested in interrogating the journals than his sister.

“Uh, kid, don't you have anything to say to Mabel?” said Stan. “You know, a little gratitude for bringing you back?”

“Pipe down, Fez. I'm doing research.” At his words, Stan's eyes narrowed.

“What did you call me?”

“Ford. Stanford Pines. That is your name, right?” Stan grabbed the boy by the collar and lifted him into the air.

“Who are you? What have you done to Dipper?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I am Dipper!” The boy’s legs dangled in the air as he clutched at the meaty hand at his throat. Stan stared at the boy’s face, and then snarled.

“Get out of his body, you demon!” Stan slammed the boy against the wall and punched his stomach, as if he was trying to do the Heimlich maneuver with his fists. A vile bile spilled from his mouth.

“Grunkle Stan, why are you doing this?” Mabel yelled.

“Mabel, this isn’t your brother. He’s lying!”

“Help me, Mabel!” her brother cried. She had to do something! As Grunkle Stan lifted his fist back to punch Dipper again, Mabel jumped up and grabbed on to his arm.

“Stop hurting Dipper!” she commanded, dangling precariously from the hairy limb.

“Mabel, this isn’t Dipper. This is—yeowch!” Dipper had bitten into the arm that was holding him up and Stan flinched back instinctively. Now that he was no longer pinned to the wall, the boy swung his feet up to wrap around Stan’s arm and wrench his collar out of Stan’s grasp. Then he did some kind of weird lizard crawl down Grunkle Stan’s body to reach the floor.

Mabel was still dangling from Grunkle Stan’s arms, trying to keep him from reaching her brother again. She clambered to his back and held her arm around his neck in a choke hold. Like an angry bull, Stan tried to shake her off. Her body lurched, jerking left and right.

“Mabel, don’t make me hurt you,” growled Stan.

“Well, don’t make me make you not hurt Dipper!” Mabel retorted. “Get out of here, bro! I'll hold him off!”

Instead of running for his life, her brother was methodically detaching the power cords from the freezer and plugging them back into the base of the triangular machine. The lights on the machine flickered to life, bit by bit. A multicolored haze appeared in the middle of the circle.

“What are you doing?” yelled Mabel, as she was shaken erratically. “You've gotta run away while Stan's distracted!”

“Don't worry about me.” The boy clambered up the sides of the portal, and straddled the central hole. His hair crackled with electricity. “I can take care of myself.” Stan finally managed to get a grip on Mabel's arm and wrenched her chokehold apart. He held her up by the scruff of her sweater, well out of kicking distance. Her brother was mumbling something in Latin, flame sparking in the middle of his hands. Mabel felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle. The girl stopped trying to kick Stan and instead slipped out of her sweater, dropping onto the ground.

“--petrificus totalus!” When the last words of the incantation ended, a beam of golden light shot from the boy's hand, hitting Stan's torso. Where the light hit, Stan's suit turned to gray stone. Stan screamed, until the spreading petrification reached his lungs and he could no longer draw breath. His mouth still gaped open, silently crying for help. Brown eyes flickered wildly until they, too, were turned to stone. When the spell finished, the old man had turned into a statue with a horrified expression, still holding Mabel's ossified sweater.

“That was a close call,” said the boy, brushing his hands together.

“What did you do to Grunkle Stan!” Mabel shook Stan, hoping against hope that the petrification was only a thin outer shell. But the weight of the statue was stone, all the way through.

“Oh, don’t worry. He’s still alive and conscious.” The unstable Stan statue toppled over and the hand which was holding the sweater snapped clean off.

“Turn him back!”

“No way! He was trying to kill me. Again.” The retort on Mabel's lips turned into a shriek as a burst of energy flared from the portal. Gravity tilted. Her feet slid on the loose gravel floor, and she tumbled sideways until she was stopped by the wall. Looking “up”, she saw a massive boulder coming straight for her. She ducked out of the way just before the stone crashed into the wall. Then gravity righted itself, and she fell into the dirt.

“Woo! This baby's full of juice!” the boy cackled from his perch on the lip of the portal, completely ignoring the danger Mabel was in.

“What are you doing? Shut it off!” Mabel eyed several boulders that could go flying at the next shift of gravity. “I could get hurt.”

“So? I have the spell and the diamonds. If you get squished, I'll just bring you back, good as new. Although, if it came to that, I might pare down your leg bones. I've always wanted a 'little' sister.” He snickered, as if death was a joke and Mabel was the punchline.

“That's sick. You're sick. You—” The girl stared at the boy silhouetted in the portal entrance. A black shadow with two eyes glowing gold. Blue fire licked his hands.

Gold. Blue fire. A casual disregard for human life.

“You're not my brother.” He just couldn't be. There was no way her brother could be such a monster.

“Oh? But don't you see the family resemblance?” The boy hooked his fingers into the corners of his mouth and pulled up to widen his grin.

“You can't be my brother,” stated Mabel, with more confidence than she felt. “Because you're Bill Cipher.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The bit where Bill calls Stan "Fez" and then insists he said "Ford" is not a typo. Bill's a dirty gas-lighter.


	19. It's Not Delivery, It's Demonic Possession

The boy clapped slowly, his sharp grin deflating whatever hopes Mabel had.

“Bravi, bravi, bravissimi. Took you long enough to realize, Shooting Star,” said Bill Cipher. “It's been what, fourteen chapters?”

“You! How are you even here? I thought you needed to be summoned!”

“Wrong again. You've got a nice dimension here, and I pop on occasion to WATCH you guys.” Bill's eyes flickered red for emphasis. “And you practically invited me to possess this meat puppet. Thanks for fixing it up, by the way. I promise I'll be much more careful with it this time around.”

“Leave us alone! And-and dream escape back to your Dreamscape!”

The demon frowned.

“Little girl, is that any way to talk to your elders?” Bill casually flicked his wrist, the same motion a bored emperor might perform to signal the execution of a losing gladiator. Mabel's feet left the ground.

“Put me down!” The girl flailed as she rose in the air, body outlined in teal foxfire.

“All I wanted was to have a little chat, face to face. But if you insist-” The magic lifting her up vanished. For too brief of a moment, she hung in the air, a thrown ball at the top of its arc. Then gravity asserted itself. She fell.

Mabel screamed. Her doomed body pumped useless adrenaline into her bloodstream. She closed her eyes and braced for pain.

Instead of a crunch and blooming agony, Mabel felt like she had dropped into something soft but restrictive. She opened her eyes and the gravel of the dirt floor loomed large in front of her like a desolate alien wasteland. Her nose barely brushed an especially large rock. She had been so close to smashing her face in. So very close.

Once again, the magic lifted her to the portal's level. Her heart pumped sour fear through her body. Muscles tensed, ready to run, but there was nothing to push against, nothing solid to grasp.

“Isn't it easier when you do things my way?” Bill said mockingly. “If people always followed my orders, they'd never have anything to worry about.” _Because they'd all be dead_ , Mabel thought, but didn't dare say out loud.

“Ha! That's a good one!” Right. Bill could hear thoughts. “But let's get this straight, I don't want to kill all the people in the world. Not ever half the people. But a decimation might be nice. Ten percent, that should be enough to convince people I mean business.”

“That's horrible!”

“Horrible? You mean hilarious! Watching humans scramble to defend themselves, like a kicked anthive. But little do they know I've got the magnifying glass! Hahaha!”

“But you're not all-powerful. You need a human body, don't you?” And humans needed to sleep. When Bill finally collapsed from exhaustion, he would be an easy target for the US Army.

“It's true, I've been a little … dimensionally-challenged in the past. But all that's going to change, thanks to this portal.” Bill balanced on the rim, stretching his arms out like a star. “Limitless energy. Infinite possibility. In one bite-size package. I saw what that unimaginative fool Six Fingers wanted to do with this power. Light up a few buildings, make cars obsolete, maybe extort a fortune and retire to Hawaii. But why settle for being a hero when you could be a god?” Bill dabbled his hands in the pool of radiant light, smiling deliriously. Where he touched it, the light seemed to absorb into his body. The portal must be enhancing his powers and allowing him to control the human world. If only she could dislodge him from that energy source …

“Shooting Star, you look so stressed,” Bill cooed. “You shouldn't worry about the coming apocalypse. I'll keep you safe. After all, you're a real collectible.”

“I'm not your doll!” Mabel swung her fist at the mocking demon, but the air resisted her, like she was forcing her hand through a vat of viscous tar. The demon met her punch with a fist-bump.

“Fiesty, aren't ya? I like it! Of course, that'll make it hard to keep you in mint condition. You're already so dirty.” From his pocket, Bill pulled out a white handkerchief, spat in it, and started wiping away the sweat, dirt, and residual body odor from staking awake all night from Mabel's outstretched arm. His touch was soft and painless, even gentle, yet the rub of the damp linen against her skin made her flesh crawl.

Mabel tried to pull her arm away, only to find that the magic aura keeping her aloft had stiffened into a rigid shell. She couldn't even expand her chest enough to take full breaths. The entrapping magic forced her to pant shallowly. Even if she wasn't restricted, she would still be hyperventilating at the way Bill slowly, carefully, and without regards to her preference at all touched her body. He manipulated her arms like she was a ball-jointed doll to get a better angle to wipe her armpits. Frowning at the few dark hairs he saw marring the creamy flesh, the demon yanked them out all at once, sending prickling tears to Mabel's eyes.

After he was satisfied with her arms, Billstarted polishing her face. The demon's eyes were not focused on Mabel's own, just each part he was cleaning. As if she was only some kind of machine he was maintaining. He wiped down her cheeks and forehead, using her tears as a convenient source of water.

He then moved the cloth downwards to clean her neck, rigorously polishing the ivory column. His hands were so close to her windpipe. If he had a whim to, he could choke her at his leisure. Mabel swallowed.

But the demon did not cut off Mabel's air supply. He merely continued polishing her clavicles until the exposed portion of her chest was dirt-free.

A bead of sweat trickled down Mabel's leg. And then trickled back towards her torso, for Bill had flipped Mabel upside down to better clean her lower half. Blood pounded in her temples. Her eyes were fixed on the rock wall of the lab, the hermetically-sealed exit doors taunting her from her floating vantage point. Denied sight, she could only feel the demon cleaning her ankles, her calves, the unnamed back of her knee, the sensitive strip of skin between her thighs. Sweet Moses, was he looking at her underwear? He could do anything he wanted to her. A sickening fear gripped her stomach. Tears watered the roots of her hair.

“All done!” Bill chirruped cheerfully. He returned her to her upright and locked position. The stiff magic shell relaxed, and Mabel huddled into a fetal position, holding her limbs close as if that could protect her. The demon waved the handkerchief, now stained brown in front of her face. “Such a dirty girl! You've really got to act more lady-like, you know.”

Instead of plotting her escape or cooking up some sweet words to poison Bill with, all Mabel could think of was her sweater. She was being silly. A sweater wasn't going to protect her from Bill's magic. She should have been wishing for a gun, one of the Journals, for her grappling hook. But at least the yarn armor would cover her arms from Bill's penetrating stare.

“You want your old sweater back? That thing's a fashion nightmare! And I know a thing or two about nightmares. Here, try this on for size.” On Mabel's body materialized a dress. A large, poofy ballgown, exactly her size, that just so happened to be made of internal organs. Loops of glistening intestines, accented with visceral fat, hung around her legs. Her arms were sheathed in elbow-length gloves made from a translucent, organic membrane. A chain of beating hearts circled her throat like a gruesome necklace.

“Now that's haute couture!”

“Uhrg, no, get it off!” The girl clawed at the raw flesh encasing her body. As she dug into the exposed organs with her fingernails, tearing gashes in the tender flesh, a muscular sphincter contracted erratically around her waist. Whatever she was wearing, it was _still alive_.

Would this waking nightmare never end?

“I see you're itching to get moving too. I've still got some preparations to do before I can absorb all the energy of this portal.” Bill materialized an old-fashioned pocket watch. “Oh, would you look at the time? My packages will be coming in at any moment and I'll need some help bringing them down here. If you be a good girl and help, I'll spare your family! But don't go pulling any 'all humans are my family' nonsense. I draw the line at third cousins.”

“What about Wendy? And Soos?”

“Icy Hot and Question Mark? Oh, sure, they're part of my Circle. The fat one can be my throne cushion.”

“And Manly Dan? Soos's Abuelita?”

“Ehh,” Bill shrugged. “Minor characters. I won't go after them intentionally, but if they get in my way? Goners.”

Bile rose up Mabel's throat. Wendy and Soos weren't going to just roll over and let Bill Cipher take over. She imagined the rebellion: secret meetings, a stockpile of rifles, taking potshots from behind the redwood trees. And an illuminati triangle, floating above, seeing all, and razing the town of Gravity Falls from existence.

“Shooting Star, there's only one correct choice.” Bill grasped her chin and forced her to look into his hypnotic snake eyes. “Help me. Entertain me. And maybe I won't explode the heads of everyone in Gravity Falls.” Their noses were almost touching. His breath puffed on her face. Bill ran his other hand through her hair. Just what did he mean by “entertain”?

“No!” Mabel shoved Bill away, pushing herself back in the air. “I won't do it. I'm not going to help you take over the Earth.” Bill flailed his arms wildly, but regained his balance on the portal's narrow edge. His lips turned downwards.

“Wrong choice.” With glowing blue hands, he shoved Mabel back. The girl closed her eyes. One moment, she could feel the echo of Bill's touch, the repulsive mass of the flesh dress weighing her down, the hot scratchy remnants of tears on her eyes. Then her body was being stretched, or not her body, exactly, but her head was definitely further away from her legs than they should have been. Then she could feel nothing at all, not the push, not the dress, not even the rush of her pounding heart.

A muffled thud sounded on the ground.

Mabel opened her eyes. Her entire body was numb. Or, did she even have a body anymore? Her body had become translucent. Through her legs, she could see a crumpled mass of girl and organs lying on the ground.

“Did you just kill me!” Mabel shrieked.

“No, I just pushed you into the Mindscape! You're going to hate it there, I know. Now, if you're not going to help me accomplish my dreams, I guess I'll just keep you with the rest of the nightmares. A couple of weeks in there, and I'm sure your attitude will turn more … agreeable.” Bill clawed the air, opening an ugly black wound between dimensions. Before the ghostly Mabel could fly away, he grabbed her by the hair.

“Good night, sleep tight, don't let the primal terrors bite!”

And Bill flung Mabel into the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been listening to a lot of WTNV recently. Can you tell?
> 
> Disturbed? Perturbed? Absurd? Leave a comment!


	20. Brother, Who Art Thou?

“ _Mooooommmm! The new kid next door is an alien!”_

“ _Now honey, that’s not a nice thing to say about people from The Comrade's Paradise of Sinostan. We should roll out the welcome wagon!”_

“ _But he talks funny and his skin is a weird color.”_

“ _Jimmy! That’s racist! I thought I taught you better than that. Now, you play nice while I bake a welcome pie.”_

“ _But mom, he’s probing the cat!”_

Dipper slouched on the armchair in his Dreamscape replica of the Mystery Shack living room, the staticky television playing a re-run of “My Neighbor is an Alien!”. It was his favorite show back in Piedmont, featuring the zany adventures of a kid trying to convince the incredibly stupid people in his hometown that the green-skinned, scaly, and oddly adorable kid next door was an alien, and not the immigrant kind. He’d watched the episodes so many times, he'd memorized them, which was how he was able to replay the scenes on the TV without them turning to exaggerated pantomime gibberish.

At the foot of the armchair, Bill's top hat rested on the ground, finally silent. The top hat had been ringing off the hook for hours with people eager to make deals. But Bill had been intermittently “busy” for the entire time, leaving Dipper and Bill Junior to pick up the slack. Dipper wasn't getting paid enough to listen to Gideon brag about his evil plans while he helped Gideon escape jail by scouting ahead for the prison guards. And that bit near the end when he possessed the computer to broadcast cute kitten videos and distract the gate guards? The boy was still digging zeroes and ones out of his ears.

Initially, Bill had let Junior make his own deals, but after the small yellow brick came back from his first job with a copy of Miss Manhattan magazine, Bill had given the yellow brick a dressing down and strict instructions on acceptable payment. A black cat. White chalk washed in milk. Fifty barrels of nuclear waste. A slice of every flavor of pie from Greasy's Diner. All to be delivered to the Mystery Shack at high noon.

A storm was brewing on the horizon, Dipper just knew it. But when the boy asked Bill about why the demon, say, needed Gideon to go to the Museum of History and retrieve a memory cannister, the demon had just patted his head and told him not to worry about it. Commanded, in fact. And now, whenever he thought about the subject--

Hey, he was out of soda. Dipper threw the old can behind the couch and conjured up a new one. If he stopped thinking about the empty can, it would vanish. Kind of convenient, although a bit freaky. Nothing was really permanent in the Dreamscape, after all.

With his new can in hand, Dipper concentrated on his memory of Pitt Soda. The fizzy bubbles burning his tongue. The sour-sweetness. The rattle of the pit. Dipper cracked open the tab and poured the liquid on his tongue.

The soda in his mouth tasted exactly like he remembered, but he couldn't remember if his memory was right. Had Pitt Soda always been this disturbing shade of pink? Or was it more of an orange color? What did “sweet” taste like again? Dipper remembered it being pleasant, remembered it making him happy, but what did it feel like translated on his tongue? Without the constant input of his body, his sense memories were evaporating away as surely as a puddle on concrete.

What had he been thinking about again? Ehh, probably not important. Dipper stared at the TV again. Coming up was the scene where Jimmy snuck into the alien's house and discovered the Insect Room.

Just as things were getting good, tiny pattering feet ran in from the kitchen. Bill Junior was hopping around, trying to get Dipper's attention. The tiny brick had either been been investigating techniques for drawing full rosy lips, or making out with a very confused femme fatale, for its yellow body was covered in red, oval-shaped splotches.

“What's up, Junior? You need a second opinion?” The brick vehemently shook his head no, and tugged Dipper's pants legs towards the direction of the kitchen. “Okay, I'm coming.”

Bill Junior bounced into the kitchen, Dipper trailing behind. He pointed to the black door that held the Nightmare Library that Dipper had organized some time ago. Something was pounding from the inside. The door shook in its frame.

“Shoot, one of the nightmares must have gotten loose.” Dipper didn't want to think about the havoc it was wreaking on his filing system. “Stay behind me, Junior.” Dipper conjured up a shield and a net, and cautiously reached for the door. He undid the bolt, and then timed his opening to halfway between the slams, hoping to catch the nightmare off guard.

Bang. Bang. Now!

Dipper threw open the door to darkness.

And Mabel threw herself across the threshold. That was the last thing he had been expecting. His sister was disheveled, sweaty, and missing her usual sweater. But even if she had been covered in manure, there was nothing that could have prevented him from pulling her into a hug.

“Stay back!” Except Mabel herself. Before his arms could wrap around her torso, the girl kicked him away. “Go away, you monster!” The girl recoiled from Dipper, as if she was a vampire shielding herself from the sun.

“It's me, Dipper. Remember?” Shoot, her memories had been removed. “Listen, I know this is gonna sound crazy, but I'm your twin brother and –”

“Eek!” Mabel pointed a trembling finger at the small yellow brick at Dipper's feet.

“Oh, that's just Bill Junior. He's harmless. Now, listen, Mabel–”

“No! I'm not falling for your tricks again, Bill Cipher!” Oh no. Dipper should have known Bill was up to no good when the demon had casually mentioned hanging out with her. Just what had he done to her?

“I'm not Bill. Please, you've gotta believe me.” There had to be some way of convincing her that he was telling the truth. “Would that overgrown dorito know that your favorite flavor of sprinkles is purple?” Dipper created a handful of the sugary treats, offering them to Mabel like he was trying to tame a skittish horse. But she slapped them out of his hand, purple specks raining down.

“I knew it! You are just trying to butter me up!”

“No, I'm not! Just hear me out.” Dipper reached for her arm.

“Don't touch me!” Mabel turned tail and fled into the dimly-lit Nightmare Library. Dipper ran after her, Bill Junior clinging to his pants leg. One by one, the overhead fluorescents turned on, a soft buzz providing the background to the rhythm of their slapping feet and the stacatto taps of the nightmares in their glass jars. As Mabel bolted down the row of shelves, she flicked her head back to track Dipper's progress. She veered a hard right at the next intersection and Dipper overshot. He had to correct himself onto her path, losing precious feet of distance. The girl continued turning randomly at the intersections of the hallways. Although Dipper could track her progress through the loosely spaced glass jars, he was losing ground. Mabel had grown even taller in the time since his death, and she had always been more athletic. Well, Dipper had his own way of catching up.

“Drop me in, Junior,” said Dipper to the brick clinging to his clothes. He slapped the brick onto the ground and jumped into its eye like it was a portable hole. After a brief stretching sensation, like he was a ball of dough being extruded into noodles, he popped out of the ground right in front of the sprinting Mabel. The girl crashed into her brother and the the two went head over heels down the corridor.

Bill Junior watched anxiously, hands over his eye, as the two siblings wrestled. Dipper latched on to Mabel's waist, and she pushed down on his shoulders, trying to slip out of his grasp.

“Just calm down and listen to me,” the boy said as he tried to use his weight to keep the girl on the ground. Mabel resorted to kicking at his stomach. “I only want to help.”

“Let go of me!” Mabel flipped onto her belly, pressing Dipper's face into the ground, and crawled towards the shelf. Grabbing the nearest jarred nightmare, she used it as a bludgeon, whacking Dipper's head with the hard glass. His eggshell skull caved in with a crunch, but the boy felt no pain, just the odd sensation of his thoughts being forcibly rearranged, effect preceding cause. Limbs spasmed erratically. The field of his vision cracked, as if he was looking through broken glass. Mabel's face dissolved into a jumble of colors and shapes. Brain not braining right …

When Dipper's head fixed itself well enough for him to think again, Mabel was standing over him with the jar held threateningly over his head.

“And there's more where that came from!” she declared, smacking it into her palm.

“Mabel, put that down,” Dipper said, trying to talk her down. “We're surrounded by incredibly dangerous nightmares. If you break the jars, we could be in serious trouble.”

“Well, well, well, looks like I finally found something you're afraid of. How does that feel, Bill?”

“For the last time, I'm not Bill--” Dipper staggered to his feet. Mabel threw the jar on the ground like a grenade. The glass shattered on the tiled floor. A phantasmal smoke rose from the shards and coalesced into a giant cobra with multiple heads, all of them hissing in Dipper's direction. The body coiled into an S-shape, ready to strike.

“Sic'em, boy!” Mabel hollered and pointed in Dipper's direction. The sudden motion drew the attention of the multi-snake, which turned towards Mabel. Like a venomous flower bursting into bloom, the hoods of the snake flared.

“No, wait, I set you free! You're supposed to go after him!”

“Mabel, these are nightmares. They can't be controlled!”

“Hi-ya!” Mabel picked up another jar and whacked each of the snake's heads in turn, like she was playing a scale on a marimba. The nightmare went down with a whump, body convulsing. Mabel crowed in triumph, but her smile faltered as the snake's tail lashed out and struck the nearest shelf. A hail of glass jars fell to the ground, shattering to bits. From the glass shards rose a dark miasma.

“Uh oh.” That was an understatement. Freed from their prisons, the nightmares buzzed in an angry swarm. Crawling spiders, swarms of wasps, barking dogs, waves of blood: the primal terrors of mankind abandoned their differences and fused into one entity, bent on taking its revenge on the puny kids that had disturbed them. Dipper pulled his stunned sister out of the way as a claw swiped at their heads.

“C'mon Mabel, we've got to get out of here!” With one hand, Dipper grabbed Mabel, and with the other, Bill Junior. He pulled them along as he fled the locus of destruction, his sister following mutely, the yellow brick flapping in his wake like a flag. The boy dared not look back at the coalescing nightmare, even as he could hear more shelves crashing. Rhythmic thuds shook the floor.

“Almost there--” The innocent light of the kitchen beckoned beyond the open door. Almost--

Scarce ten feet from the door, a shadow covered the fleeing trio. Dipper pulled the group into a duck and roll as a shelf crashed in front of the door. Now they were well and truly trapped. The boy turned around to face the nightmare, pushing Mabel behind him to shield her with his body.

The nightmare kaiju was intentionally sweeping its tail and limbs over the shelves, wrecking the jars and releasing more dark protoplasm to add to its bulk. Within the hulking mass, the individual terrors fought for control, buzzing, and snarling, and hissing, until three heads rose to prominence. The head of a wolf, all coarse fur and rabid saliva. The head of a dragon, mouth brimming with knife-like teeth. And, most terrible of all, a wrinkly-skinned, sharp-tongued librarian.

“Your books are overdue!” boomed the giant old woman. “Now you must pay the price!” The librarian head glared at the trio, freezing them in place with her implacable stare. The dragon head inhaled and reared back. Flames licked from the inside of its maw.

“Brace yourself!” Dipper raised his arms up, hands curled into claws. A cylinder of metal burst out of the tiled floor, rising up to join into a half-sphere. The metal shield closed above their heads just before the dragon head's fiery breath hit. Their enmity forgotten, Mabel and Bill Junior huddled in the center of the dome. The shield glowed dull red, then orange, then finally a blinding white, illuminating their frightened faces as bright as day. Smoke curled from the edges where the metal came in contact with the floor. Dipper gritted his teeth in concentration as he pitted his will against the nightmare's flame.

The huffing and puffing outside the shield grew less frequent, and Dipper could no longer feel the pressure of the dragon's breath on the outside of the shield. The metal cooled from white to red to black, until the only light inside the shield was the faint yellow luminescence of Bill Junior's body.

“Phew.” Dipper flopped to the ground, covered in sweat. Must have been his mind's metaphor for exhaustion.

“You saved me,” mumbled Mabel.

“Well, yeah. Why wouldn't I?” Mabel clenched her hands against her knees, head drooped, hair draped around her face like a veil.

“But you were so close to escaping. You could have made it if you hadn't dragged me along.”

“I couldn't leave you in here with that thing. You would get eaten, or burnt up, or scolded to death. There's no way I'd make you fight alone. After all, we're the Mystery Twins.”

Mabel parted her hair, revealing her watery eyes.

“I was wrong. You are my brother. My real brother.”

“I knew you'd come around—aarg!” Mabel surprised Dipper by pulling him into a bonecrushing hug. Dipper could feel his organs rearranging from her preternatural strength. “Wow, I forgot how strong you are.”

“That's because I'm the alpha twin.” Dipper returned the hug, wrapping his arms around Mabel's bare limbs. Hmm. That didn't seem right.

“Don't take this the wrong way, but I think you'll want this.” Drawing from his bank of treasured memories, Dipper created a fuzzy, purple sweater that hovered momentarily in the air before drifting down to Mabel's side. “I left the front blank for you to fill in.”

“How did you do that?”

“I should have told you this earlier, but we're in the Dreamscape. You can make anything you can imagine.”

“Anything?” Mabel's eyes were shining with more than tears now.

“Anything.” Mabel closed her eyes in concentration. A wibbling glow appeared on the front of the sweater. Dipper couldn't wait to see what she would come up with.

Crack! A massive bite mark dented the top of the metal sphere. Bill Junior squeaked and his body turned into a video screen, showing footage from high above the shield. Dipper had a prime view of the wolf head of the nightmare gnawing on the metal like an oversized tennis ball. As the wolf chomped on the shield, the dark metal groaned and cracks.

“Dipper, that nightmare is still after us!”

“Shoot, I shouldn't have let my guard down. No more running and hiding. We're gonna have to take this monster down.”

He suited, like a knight leaving for war. But there was no need to limit himself to medieval technologies. Angular plates of exotic metal clamped around his body, forming a boxy armor. Tack on a rocket pack for maneuverability. A giant laser sword at his side, for close-range combat. And a cape, for style.

“Mecha-Dipper, reporting for battle!” roared the boy, as much as his pre-pubescent voice could handle. He tossed a remote control to Mabel so they could keep in touch. “You keep yourself safe. I'll end this nightmare and then we can both go home.” Then he punched through the roof of the shield, thrusting his fist straight into the tender meat of the wolf's mouth.


	21. The Power of the Stars

Mabel could barely keep up with the speed of her brother's attacks, as he ducked and weaved through the nightmare's limbs, deftly cutting off a writhing tentacle with his ludicrously oversized sword before firing a rocket into a giant pincer reaching for him. The ground shook as the ponderous nightmare stomped around, trying to catch up with the tiny human buzzing around its heads.

“Go Dipper! Wipe that monster's butt! I mean kick! Kick its butt!” She wasn't the only one cheering. Bill Junior was wearing a cheerleader's outfit and waving pom-poms, cavorting in somersaults, and making a high-pitched noise like a pocket whistle.

The fight dragged on and on. Despite the endless barrages of missiles and superficial cuts, Dipper didn't seem to be making much of a dent in the nightmare kaiju's vast bulk. Mabel called out warnings when a grasping claw reached for Dipper from behind, but there wasn't much she could do from the sidelines. Bill still had his nefarious plot to take over the world, and they needed to get back before he fully absorbed the portal's power.

“Hurry up, Dipper! We still need to get back to the human world and stop Bill's evil plan!”

“I'm doing the best that I can,” yelled Dipper, as he shot one of his armored gauntlets at the wolf head's eye, crushing into a bloody pulp. “Wait, why did I even do that?” said the boy, clenching his naked hand. The dragon head retaliated by aiming a gout of fire at the armored boy, who safely rolled out of the way. His cape, however, was not so lucky.

“Hot, hot, hot!” Dipper patted out the fire on his back. “All right, this battle has gone on long enough. Finishing Move: Ten Thousand Missile Barrage!” Dipper's armored shoulderpads, knee guards, and stomach plates clicked open, bristling rows of rockets. He flexed his body outwards, as if he was saluting the sun, and an implausible stream of projectiles shot from his suit. Louder than a Fourth of July fireworks display, the missiles impacted the nightmare's body, churning the air cloudy with dust and smoke.

“Yes! Direct hit!” Dipper fist-bumped in the air. “I should have used that attack to begin with.” He flew celebratory loop-de-loops over the bulk of the nightmare. In the clearing smoke, Mabel saw the dark mass twitch.

“Dipper, watch out!”

“Huh?” A red beam shot out of the dust, catching the boy in its path. Mabel could only watch helplessly as Dipper's armor was seared off his body. From the dust cloud rose the librarian head of the nightmare. Pink-skinned and naked as the day he was born, Dipper was suspended in mid-air by the force of the librarian's glare.

“No rough-housing in the stacks!” commanded the librarian. It adjusted its glasses with one clawed hand, then swiped downwards, as if tearing off an unauthorized flyer from the community bulletin board.

Dipper's body remained suspended in the air. For a second, Mabel could believe that nothing had happened. Then his feet detached, then his legs, until the boy was a jumble of chopped parts falling down.

“I should have used the One Million Barrage…” Dipper's voice crackled on the radio, fading before hitting the ground.

“Dipper!” Mabel screamed. She dropped to her knees. How could this have happened? Her brother, her champion, had fallen. Who would save them now?

Bill Junior hopped up and down, waving his arms to get Mabel's attention. The sentient post-it note grabbed Mabel's hand and pointed to his eye. Something glimmered inside.

“You want me to reach inside your eye?” Bill Junior nodded yes. Mabel pressed her hand through the soap-bubble membrane of the little brick's eye. Groping blindly, her fingertips closed around something hard and metal-cold. As she grasped the metal bar, a sharp point pricked her palm.

“Ouch!” She flinched and withdrew her hand from Bill Junior's eyes. The object clattered to the tiled floor, turning out to be a sword made of ink-black metal with a yellow cat's eye gem set in the pommel. On closer inspection, a sharp spike stuck out of the sword's grip. To wield the sword properly would require driving the spike deep into her palm, joining cold metal and her own body.

Bill Junior waddled over to the sword and tried to pick it up, arms taut, knees wobbling. He strained upwards, until the hilt barely lifted up the ground. The yellow rectangle dragged the heavy metal in the direction of the nightmare beast, squawking a piteous challenge.

“Wait, you're going to fight that thing? There's no way you can win!” The yellow rectangle knelt down on one knee and bowed, a knight genuflecting to his lady. What the heck was wrong with Mabel, that she was letting a slice of cheese fight her battles for her?

“Stand down, Bill Junior. I've got a duty to avenge my brother.” The girl thrust a hand into the air, striking a pose.

“Heavenly Crystal Dress Up!” the girl cried in heavily-accented English. From her chest, Mabel drew a pink, star-topped wand, which trailed glitter as she spun around. The circles of glitter turned into a pastel, marbled bubble, cacooning her in its opalescent glow. Shimmering beams wrapped around her ordinary Mary-Janes, turning them into high-heeled boots. The light swept around her body, pleating her plain skirt, and adding an elaborate bow to the back of her sweater. On her head appeared a radiant tiara with a massive purple gem. Finally, the light returned to her chest, leaving a supernova insignia on her sweater.

“I am Cosmic Space Princess Mabel! You hurt my brother! Now prepare to die!”

The wolf head of the nightmare kaiju turned away from the slices of Dipper that it had been about to lap up and growled in Mabel's direction. One of its eyes was nothing more than a bleeding cavity, but the other glinted through bloody fur. The head lunged forward, neck stretching long like a snake. A maw bigger than her body lunged forward to crunch the life from the floating girl. Mabel flew sideways, out of the wolf's jaws.

“Cosmic Ray!” Mabel needled the shaggy fur with her wand's laser beams. The stench of singed hair filled the air, but her attacks didn't seem to be doing much damage, as the head shook like a wet dog drying itself. Plus, she had the dragon head to worry about as well, as it lunged opportunistically at the brightly colored gnat flitting around. Not to mention the intense disapproving glare of the librarian head.

“Nebula Dust!” A cloud of blindingly-white glitter drifted over the nightmare kaiju's heads. The dragon head stopped snapping at the magical girl in favor of the distractingly shiny dust, and the librarian sneezed, closing its eyes. The wolf's tongue lolled as it panted, like an overgrown dog. One eye tracked Mabel's hand, as she vigorously waved the wand in the air to spread the glitter.

“Here boy, you wanna play fetch?” The wolf head barked. “Catch!” Mabel grew her wand until it was twice as tall as she was and then flung it over with titanic strength. Up and up it climbed, until the wolf snatched the glowing stick from the air. Steak knife teeth sank deep into the pink column. The wolf attempted to gnaw at the giant wand, and balked, puzzled. Neck muscles rippled as the wolf head tried to pry open its jaws, but its teeth were sunk too deep into the pink wand to be released. It whined, rubbing the side of its head against the ground.

“Bad dog! I'm revoking your mouth privileges!” Mabel couldn't rest easy with her victory, for the dragon head and the librarian head had recovered from their en-glittering. The dragon head roared, and spat a wave of fire at the girl, while the librarian head tutted and waved a finger.

“Space Diamond Barrage!” All around the Nightmare Library, massive hunks of clear crystal rained down on the nightmare kaiju. One look at the shiny jewels, and the dragon gave up chasing the flying girl, scooping up diamonds by the scaly armful to deposit near its feet.

“We must destroy the interloper!” commanded the librarian, but the dragon ignored its other head, arranging the crystals into a bowl-shaped nest. Then, the dragon's head cracked to one side as the librarian slapped the scaly beast hard with a pruny, manicured hand. “Keep focused!” The librarian lowered her horn-rimmed glasses to transfix Mabel with a stern look. Literally, as Mabel found herself unable to fly away. “Little girls should play house, not rough house.”

“Hey, I'm not a little girl. I'm a woman!” Mabel tossed her hair back for dramatic effect.

“Even worse. How will you ever enter the bonds of holy matrimony with such a churlish demeanor? Men shall spurn your nettles for the blushing rose, and you will grow old, unloved and alone.” The librarian's liver-spotted wattles shook. “Heed me, and avoid my fate!”

“Well, maybe you're alone because you keep bossing people around!”

“Well, I never!” The librarian picked Mabel up with her claw-like fingernails and held her above canyon-like wrinkles. “Back in my day, children had respect for their elders! And always said prayers before they ate! And wore dresses that covered their ankles,” the librarian ranted on, gobs of spittle flying up and impacting the girl's bare legs. Mabel didn't have time for a lecture! There was a brother/world to save! Now, what did librarians fear …

Of course! Mabel summoned a gob of artificially-sweetened gum and started working her jaws overtime.

“And don't get me started on mobile devices!” continued the librarian. “What do you have in your mouth? No eating in the stacks!”

“Chew on this!” And Mabel started blowing a bubble.

“No, not that!” The librarian held Mabel at a massive arm's length, as if she was infected with measles. The pink bubble expanded until it was bigger than her head, then bigger than her own body, blocking the librarian's glare with its sticky translucency. When the bubble was as big as the librarian's head, Mabel pinched it shut.

“Sorry not sorry to burst your bubble!” And with a poke of her finger, the pink balloon exploded all over the librarian's face. The librarian dropped Mabel to claw at its face, scraping deep gouges as it tried to remove the clinging gunk. Now with the three heads nullified, Mabel could finish off the beast.

“Holy Sunshine Beauty Love Big Bang!” The girl mustered all her emotions: triumph, fear, anger, sadness, and love. From out of her chest, a ball of light escaped, hanging in the air like a disco ball. The newborn sun hung in the air, held together only by her will.

Then Mabel let go.

The resulting explosion was blinding. A shock wave rocked the entire room, throwing up chunks of floor to be dissolved into nothing. All three heads of the nightmare kaiju howled as they were burned out of existence by the tremendous light. As the force of her disembodied emotions seared away the Dreamscape, Mabel felt calm. No, not calm. Empty.

Mabel opened her arms to the raw force of her spirit. With the infinite potential of the Dreamscape, she could birth a new universe. Let the old one be taken by Bill. She could create a world with no darkness. Just light.

Something flickered below her. A hand-shaped shadow groped uncertainly. Was that … Dipper?

The cosmic radiation dissipated, leaving behind only a fist-sized flickering orb. Mabel grabbed the orb with both hands, pressing it back into her chest. Her magical girl outfit dissolved, returning her sweater and shoes to their normal state, and she floated down to the ground.

Bill Junior ran to Mabel's side, eyes shining with admiration. The yellow rectangle knelt and raised its arms, praising her worth.

“Get up, Bill Junior. We've got to find my brother.” The rectangle got up and saluted, bounding around to gather Dipper's scattered pieces. “Dipper, are you here? Speak to me, bro-bro!”

“Down here,” croaked her brother's voice. Mabel brushed aside the rubble until she found the source.

“You're okay!” Mabel hugged Dipper's severed head to her chest.

“Yeah, so it turns out you can't actually die when you're already dead. Ow, ow, careful with the cut edge.”

“Sorry!” Mabel gently set down Dipper's head. “I'll get you fixed up in a jiffy!” She concentrated, and conjured up a pink toolbox full of sewing thread, hot glue, googly eyes, and everything else she needed for a Craft-mergency ™. Bill Junior returned with an armful of severed parts. Mabel lay out the pieces like a jigsaw puzzle.

“The skull bone's connected to the leg bone,” she sang.

“Mabel, I swear, if you mix up my body parts ...”

“You'll do what, slap me with your feet?”

***

After judicious applications of sewing thread and hot glue, Dipper's soul was patched together more-or-less correctly.

“Doctor Mabel declares her patient to be healed!” She held out her hand to help Dipper up. As soon as her brother grasped her hand, the weak seam broke, and his arm fell off.

“Mabel, I don't think this is going to work. I can still feel the cut edges scraping against each other.” Bill Junior picked up the severed arm and pressed it against the stump. Dipper pursed his lips.

“Bill Junior, you're useless.” The yellow brick squeaked in indignation and dropped Dipper's arm. “I wish Bill really had eaten you. Your squeaky voice is annoying. And that bow looks stupid on you.” The tiny brick fumed, and ripped off the black bow tie, throwing it on the ground. It huffed and crossed its arms.

“Dipper, how could you be so rude? What a woman wears is between her and God.” Mabel took the little brick under her woolen wing. “I happen to think that bow looks nice on you. Although ...” Mabel picked up the bow and popped at a jaunty angle on a corner of the brick's head. “There! You look so cute!” Mabel held up a compact mirror. The brick started tearing up.

“Oh no, did I do something wrong?” Mabel reached out to take the bow off, but the yellow brick held it protectively.

“Wait a minute,” Mabel said. “You're not a Bill Junior. You're a Bill-ette!” The little brick hugged Mabel, staining her sweater black with inky tears.

“Great job, Mabel! Now you can use the tears to glue me back together!”

“Right after you apologize for misgendering this rectangle!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been waiting for months to present that revelation about Billette.
> 
> Questions for which you need an answer? Answers for which you need a question? Comment!


	22. Passing the Torch

After some apologetic groveling from Dipper, and frenetic exposition from Mabel, Billette transported the two twins to the Mystery Shack. The Shack was almost completely swallowed by the cast shadows of the redwoods, dappled sunlight fading into twilight. The trees shivered in the wind, their rustling branches the only sound in the forest.

“Bill's opening the portal in the basement right now. We've got to stop him!” said Mabel.

“Hold on. The last time I went into the lab as a ghost, I got caught by a magical security system. Since we're intangible now, we should phase into the ground and posses our bodies from below,” suggested Dipper. “Maybe we can even get the jump on Bill.”

“That's a great idea! Let's go!” The girl sank into the ground, her brother close behind.

Like most great ideas, it was better in theory than in practice. Mabel couldn't see through the dirt, and without a reference point, she couldn't tell how fast she was descending. Well, if they hit the Earth's core, they'd know that they'd gone too far.

“The basement should be around here somewhere,” Dipper muttered. “Aha!” Mabel flew towards the sound of Dipper's voice. Her eyes were hit by eerie blue light as soon as they entered the underground cavern. Next to her, she could see Dipper's head sticking out of the wall as if he was a hunter's trophy.

The portal's rim had been painted with symbols in browning red. Some of the shapes she recognized: a pine tree, a shooting star, Stan's fez, the six-fingered hand from the journals. The light of the portal swirled around and around, draining into a yellow triangle with a wide, dilated pupil who floated in the center.

“No, we're too late,” said Dipper.

“It's not over till the fat lady writes an award-winning book about body positivity. Bill hasn't absorbed all the energy of the portal yet. If we disrupt the ritual, we could still stop him! Look, I see our bodies!” Mabel pointed to two limp forms discarded on the ground, next to Statue Stan. She flew down and possessed herself.

Mabel groaned as she re-entered her body. Her body was sore all over, and she just knew her back was going one giant purple bruise. That horrifying organ dress still encased her body, the flesh now dry and crusty. At least whatever it had been was dead now.

Dipper stirred next to her. He wiggled his fingers, as if amazed that the mechanical action of muscles and tendons could produce a movement.

“I can't believe I forgot how it feels to be alive.” He squinched his face and stuck out his tongue. “Bluh, why does my mouth taste like pie and vomit?”

“Human pie is delicious!” said Bill. The twins jerked their attention towards the portal. The demon's pupil contracted and focused on the twins. “Oh, don't act so surprised. Did you really think I wouldn't be able to sense a portal opening? And by my own son as well.” Bill Junior was dragged through the walls, trapped in a shell of light. “It's too late to stop me. I've already projected into the three-dimensional plane. In fact, I can touch you now.” Bill stretched a licorice arm towards Mabel, who stood frozen.

Right before the hand caressed Mabel's cheek, she grabbed the ropey arm and tugged sharply. Bill flailed and fell out of the portal. Wrapping the arm around her hand as if she was making a yarn ball, Mabel reeled in Bill, his triangular body fluttering down like a poorly-made kite.

“Aarg! Fly! Fly!” Bill flapped his arm in a blur, which did nothing to stop his fall. He skidded face-first into the dirt. “Ahh! The pain!” he cried, as small rocks embedded themselves in his now-three-dimensional eye.

“I guess you didn't see the gravity of your situation!” Mabel quipped. Bill clawed the dirt in an attempt to stop himself from being dragged forward, but Mabel's pull was irresistible.

“Almost got him--” she muttered.

Bill's eye narrowed. He grabbed his own trapped arm, pulled it over the top point of his body, and sliced the limb clean off. The wrapped arm in Mabel's hand writhed violently, like a severed lizard's tail, and dissolved into a black tarry substance that burned like acid. The girl yelped and scraped her hand on the ground.

“Ahaha! See ya suckers!” The dream demon shot his remaining arm like a grappling hook around the portal. He flew towards the bright circle--

Until he was tackled by Dipper.

“You! Mutiny! I own you!”

“No you don't! The deal said that have to do everything you say if you keep me from being dragged off to the afterlife. Now that I'm alive again, the deal's off!” Dipper pinned down Bill's sheet-like body and raised his fist.

“This is for killing me the first time!” Dipper slammed his fist into Bill's eye. “And this is for traumatizing Billette!” Pow! “And this is for hurting Mabel!” Wham! Mabel could swear that Statue Stan shed a tear of pride.

“And this is for making me wear this gross dress!” Mabel kicked Bill in the face-body. A shudder rippled through Bill's body. The demon lay still.

Just then, the room shook. The lightbulbs on the edge of the portal glowed brighter and brighter until they exploded, one by one. Mabel felt like she was vibrating at seven different frequencies all at once. Every klaxon in the lab went off at once.

“What's going on?” asked Dipper.

“You fools, do you know what you've done?” said Bill from underneath the two. “That portal is bleeding energy! Without me to stabilize the rift, the universe is going to tear itself apart!”

“But if we let you go, you'll turn this world into a nightmare horror dimension,” Mabel yelled above the howling of the void.

“It's either me, or oblivion. Pick your poison!”

Dipper glanced around the room, at the putrifying flesh of Mabel's dress, at the Illuminati triangle, at the incandescent portal, at the small yellow rectangle pounding on its bubble prison …

“That's it! Billette can absorb the energy!” said Dipper. The boy dropped a rock on top of Bill to serve as a paperweight before running to the bubbled rectangle. He cracked the bubble open like an egg and the yolk-yellow rectangle plopped to the ground. Billette strode to the side of her father, standing over his prone form. She squeaked a message.

“You, take my place? That's ridiculous! What do you know about the Dreamscape?”

Billette squeaked again, gesturing wildly.

“No, wait, let's think this through,” Bill said in a panic. “You can't handle that much power! You're only a kid. Release me, and together we could rule the universe, as father and son.”

Billette chittered angrily.

“I mean daughter!” Billette stormed away from her father. To the twins, she pointed to herself and to the portal.

“I'm on it!” Mabel folded the yellow rectangle into an airplane and flung her into the portal. A pulse of light swept through the room, bright enough to blind even filtered through Mabel's eyelids. Then the light reversed course, sweeping back into the portal. The klaxons turned off, one by one. The room stilled. The portal light faded. A one-eyed rectangle floated serenely in the circle of dead metal.

“That was a close call,” she said, in a voice like a tinkling bell. “Oh, my, I can talk!” Billette clapped her hands to her cheeks.

“No!” screamed Bill. “Do you know what happens to a being of pure energy without a power source! I'm shrinking, I'm shrinking, oh, what a world, what a world ...” Bill's voice got higher and higher pitched. Finally, his crumpled body was longer visible. Dipper lifted up the rock pinning him down. Underneath was a small triangle no larger than a nacho chip, still squeaking in shock.

Bill floated up, despite the kicking and flailing of his stubby legs. Billette attached the the struggling dorito to one of her lower corners.

“This is a good look for you, Father,” Billette said. The triangular earring glared.

“They grow up so fast,” Mabel sniffed.

“My, my, what a mess Bill made. Let's get this place cleaned up.” With a wave of her beneficent arm, the broken pipes, hanging wires, and loose rubble fixed themselves.

“Now you can fix up Grunkle Stan too!”

“I don't know, I kind of prefer him like this,” said Billette. “He's got a kind of Greco-Roman look to him.” Mabel glared. “Oh fine, if you insist.”

Statue Stan's detached hand lifted up and attached itself back to its wrist. The statue returned to an upright position, and a wave of fleshy pink replaced stone gray. When Grunkle Stan was returned to his normal state, he stumbled forward.

“Wha-- I can move? I can move!” Stan stood straight up, cracking his back. “Ow, okay, I can't move that much.”

“Grunkle Stan! Are you okay?” The twins rushed to his side.

“Well, I've been better,” the old man said, wiping the graffiti from his face. “It was torture. I could see and hear everything, but I couldn't help. But at least you're safe now. Here, Mabel, this belongs to you.”

“My sweater!” The girl ripped off the gross dried organs still attached to her body and slid into her woolen clothes.

“Grunkle Stan, Mabel, I'm sorry,” said Dipper. “If I'd never made that deal with Bill in the beginning, none of this mess would have happened.”

“No, it's my fault,” said Stan. “If I had told you the truth, we could have worked together to fight Bill.”

“And Mabel, I wish you hadn't had to deal with Bill's mind games,” continued Dipper.

“Well, I got my real brother back, so I'd say it was worth it” said Mabel. “And at least Bill got his just desserts.” Billette flicked her earring and giggled.

“C'mere, you two.” Stan pulled them both into a massive bear hug, tight enough to squish the air from their bodies.

“Now that you're alive again, I guess I've got a lot of explaining to do to your parents, what with the memory removal and everything,” said Stan. “Hey, if they don't believe my story about Mabel suddenly having another sibling, you can always live with me, Dipper.”

“Oh, I'll take care of that,” said Billette.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that was some battle. I hope that the plot has come to a satisfactory conclusion. There's just one chapter left to clear up some loose ends.
> 
> Comment if you care!


	23. Dream Theater

Dipper slipped his finger under his collar to loosen his bowtie as he searched for a seat in the crowded theater. It was a little weird that he was wearing a suit for a movie, but this theater was certainly the fanciest he'd ever been in. The ceiling and walls were covered in frescos like the Sistine Chapel, but instead of religious scenes, the murals depicted famous movie posters like Casablanca and Indiana Jones, framed by intricate, ribbon-like moldings gilded shiny.

The theater seats were packed with familiar faces. Sherrif Blubs and Deputy Durland shared an “Xtra-Large Sweet and Salty Theater Snak Pak,” annoying Toby Determined by blocking his view with the pile of food. The entire Corduroy clan was present, Manly Dan taking up three whole seats but making up for it by dandling two of his sons on his knees. Soos and his grandma, the Valentinos, Shmipper and Smabble, it looked like the whole town of Gravity Falls was present.

“Dipper! Over here!” Mabel called over from the middle of a row. She was wearing the formal green dress that she only put on during her kazoo recitals, but she had slipped on a sweater with a ribbon bow symbol on the front. Dipper waded through the sitting people to join his twin.

“Thanks for saving me a seat, Mabel,” he said, only to be interrupted by a stern throat-clearing.

“Who are you, young man?” said a woman with a straight bob and pearl earrings.

“Not trying to seduce our little girl, I hope,” added a portly man in a light blue button-down.

“Mom? Dad?” said Dipper. “It's me, Dipper, Mabel's twin brother.” The woman paused a beat before bursting out into laughter.

“I think I'd remember if I had another kid. It's hard to forget pushing someone out of my birth canal.”

“The resemblance is uncanny, but there's no way we're letting Mabel sit unattended with a boy,” added the man. “Especially in a dark movie theater.” Dejected, Dipper turned around to leave, when he was picked up by the waist by two meaty hands.

“Gotcha, kid!” said Grunkle Stan, lifting him into the row behind. “I've got a seat for you right here. I guess I was waiting for someone who never showed up.”

“Thanks, Grunkle Stan.” Dipper settled in just in time for the lights to dim. A flickering countdown appeared on the silver screen. Five, four, three, two, one. The movie opened to a shaky home video of a baby's head pushing out of a pregnant mother's dilated vagina. Noises of disgust and retching filled the audience.

“Hey, this isn't the kind of adult movie I wanted to see. I demand a refund!” said Grunkle Stan.

“Okay honey, just a little more,” said a man's voice. “Push push push!” The baby's head popped out of the woman's birth canal. Gloved hands eased the baby out of the woman. With practiced ease, the nurse clamped and snipped the umbilical cord.

“Congratualtions on your daughter and son, Mr. Pines,” said the nurse handing the baby to the man.

“Hey, I did most of the work here,” said Mrs. Pines weakly.

“He's certainly got a big head,” said Mr. Pines. “You'll be a smart boy, just like your daddy. Oh, what's this?” Mr. Pines rubbed on the baby's forehead to reveal a birthmark in the shape of the Big Dipper constellation.

“Well, that's funny,” said the nurse. “Never seen anything like it.”

“It's my turn,” said Mrs. Pines. “Let him meet his sister.” The woman held both babies to her chest. The female baby stared at her brother with wide eyes and bopped him on the nose. The male baby wailed, setting off the girl too.

“Sush,” whispered Mrs. Pines. After much soothing, the twins finally calmed down, suckling at the woman's breasts. “Our beautiful children, Mabel and Dipper.” The crowd “awwed.”

The rest of the movie was a highlights reel of Dipper's life. The audience laughed at Dipper's “Lamby Lamby Dance”, cried when bullies destroyed his science fair project, and cheered when Mabel and Dipper came up with a brilliant plan of to get back at them using diet coke, mentos, and a bucket of live worms. Dipper squirmed embarrassingly as his awkward fifth-grade crush on the eighth-grader Jessica Smith played out in technicolor.

Dipper's life story progressed until the present summer, detailing his discovery of the Journal, some harrowing mishaps with the Gobblewonker and the Gremloblin, and his death and enslavement by Bill. It looked someone had blown the special effects budget on this part, his battles against the Nightmare Kaiju filmed in loving detail, with lots of CG and crazy explosions. Dipper didn't remember walking out of a fire clutching Mabel in his arms with his shirt artfully torn to reveal bulging pecs, but he'd take it!

After the final battle against Bill concluded, the credits rolled. Everyone was credited as playing themselves, but the director, producer, editor, and other supporting roles were all credited to a symbol resembling a movie ticket with an eye.

“That was amazing!” said Grunkle Stan, punching Dipper on the shoulder. “You really knocked'em dead, kid!”

“I dunno, I don't think it passed the Bechdel test,” said Mabel, turning around to the row behind. “And I totally did more in the final battle than just stand around waiting for Dipper to save me with his battle suit.”

“Come on Mabel. Let me have my fifteen minutes,” said Dipper. He stood up to get out, only to be embraced by Mr. and Mrs. Pines.

“My son, how could I have forgotten you?” said Mr. Pines.

“You're safe, thank god you're safe,” said Mrs. Pines. “I am never letting you out of the house again!”

“Aw, Mom, I'm fine now, aren't I?” Dipper pouted as he was smothered by his tearful parents.

“As for you, Stanford, how could you let my baby boy die!” yelled Mrs. Pines.

“Ah, well, I brought him back, you see--” stammered Grunkle Stan. Mrs. Pine's tirade was interrupted by the movie screen rippling and tearing itself off the wall. A giant circular eye blinked open in the center of the screen, and the silver screen became a yellowish-beige color.

“I hope you enjoyed the movie,” said the floating Billette in an incongruously high-pitched voice. “The work was a labor of love, a tribute to Dipper Pines, who saved the entire universe from the plans of my evil father, Bill!” A chorus of applause swelled over the entire crowd.

“Everything you have just witnessed is true. The Dreamscape is under new management. Your dreams shall be filled with enchantment, not fear. The night will become more stars than darkness. I aspire to a future when all of humanity will welcome the coming of the night.”

“Good night, Gravity Falls. And sweet dreams to you all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap! Thank you for sticking around for my most ambitious story to date. I left a wee bit of sequel hook, but it's unlikely I'll follow through on it.
> 
> If I had to write this story all over again, I'd make Mabel the only POV character, because I think her side of the story turned out much more interesting than Dipper's did. Feel free to ask if you have any lingering questions.
> 
> Want more GF shenanigans? Follow me at gravityfollower.tumblr.com


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